


Ain't Misbehaving

by Revenant



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Adaptation, Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Artist Steve Rogers, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bucky has a dog, But Steve Means Well, F/F, F/M, FBI Agent Bucky Barnes, Fluff and Humor, Is It Stalking If He Doesn't Close the Blinds?, M/M, Pet Names, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Romance, Roommates, The Answer is Obviously Yes, Undercover Bucky, fashion industry, metropolitan museum of art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 06:24:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11868516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Revenant/pseuds/Revenant
Summary: Steve Rogers is an excellent judge of character. No, really! But, as Peggy puts it: when it comes to love his head tends to override his heart. When his girlfriend leaves him for a model Steve wonders if he'll ever find the right partner; maybe it's time to stop looking.Naturally, this is when he (quite literally) runs into Jim Buchanan, a fashion exec who (also literally) makes Steve weak-in-the-knees. Sure, that might just be the concussion but they do seem to have some sort of chemistry. Jim's sweet and funny, walks his neighbor's rescue dog and can do over 300 chin-ups without pausing to catch his breath (Steve's new apartment has a great view), so clearly there must be something horrible he's trying to keep secret.(A Head Over Heels adaptation)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This fic is an adaptation of the movie 'Head Over Heels' and features some scenes of non-graphic violence, a shadow swinging a baseball bat and people perving on their neighbors who never close their blinds. It also includes past Sharon/Steve (past as in, it opens with them broken-up) and mention of cheating. I would like to take this moment to say I hold no ill will towards Sharon at all (despite what MCU has done to her), but I'm incapable of concocting an OC just so as to avoid ruffling feathers over an impossibly minor part when there is no shortage of actual MCU characters to play with. 
> 
> Additionally, the opening of this story and Steve's ruminating of Alternate Realities draws inspiration from Joanna Russ' 'The Female Man', which I happened to be reading at the time. If you're interested in slightly dated 80s feminist sci-fi that features traveling through space/time and a planet populated only by women, I recommend it.
> 
> With many thanks to ~ [ milollita](https://milollita.tumblr.com/) for not only the incredible art but patience and support throughout this BB. It's my first foray into this fandom and you made it lots of fun, so thank-you!
> 
> Please check-out the art : [ over here](https://milollita.tumblr.com/post/164455452576/papercraft-art-for-the-wonderful-fic-by) & [ The Masterpost](https://milollita.tumblr.com/post/164455198226/aint-misbehaving-a-collaboration-for-the)

Steve's been thinking a lot about alternate realities.

You run to catch the bus and then you either make the bus or you don't. Sometimes you run out of breath, or the bus driver isn't feeling charitable and steps on the gas and zooms away. Right there, that's two different worlds of possibility: you made the bus; you didn't.

Every choice must be like that, two different worlds growing out of one decision: you did it, or you didn't. Actually, it's probably a lot more than two worlds because he could have made the bus but had an asthma attack, or his heart acted up. Maybe there's a world where he made the bus but ended up in the hospital and then he wouldn't be standing out here in the rain thinking about alternate realities.

Then the question becomes: in each of those worlds does he know what he does now? Is the Steve Rogers in those worlds ignorant of the truth and, does that mean he's happier? 

It makes him unsettled, thinking that.

The familiar red car pulls, fast and smooth, to the curb. Water splashing onto the sidewalk, displaced, but stops just shy of his boots. Someone honks as the car's hazard lights switch on and then Peggy's climbing out of the vehicle.

"Don't," he says. "You're gonna get soaked."

She ignores him even though she's in the classy pumps that are the same shade of red as her lipstick (and her car). "You look tragic, my darling," she tells him, kissing his cheek and then looping an arm over his shoulders to draw him into a hug. 

"Gee, thanks, Peg." But he closes his eyes and holds onto her for a moment. Breathes.

When they separate she reaches for the luggage at his feet. It's just the one suitcase but he'd struggled to haul it down five separate flights of stairs (the elevator in the building is broken again). "I can manage," he protests, but she's already swinging it into the trunk of the car.

"Tell me that's not all you're taking with you?"

He shrugs, drags his bangs back from his face with his fingers. "I can send for the rest."

"I won't stand for it! How can I whisk you away properly if half your personal effects are being held hostage?"

"Everything I care about's in the car, I promise. It's just –" he has to take a long breath before he can admit, "Peg, he's still up there. With her. I don't want --"

Peggy draws herself up to full height, which is several inches taller than him when she's in those heels, and levels a fierce glare in the general direction of what was once Steve's shared apartment. When she looks back there's nothing but sympathy on her face, "I know you must want to quit this place as soon as possible, but can you bare it? Just for a moment longer? Then you never have to look back."

"I'm fine." It's sort of a rote response for him, his default setting but she just stares at him and after a second he shrugs again. "Yeah, Peg, I can manage but what –"

"Excellent. Dry off, and turn the heat up. I won't be a moment." She gives him another quick kiss on the cheek, deftly pickpocketing his keys from his over-sized coat as she does so. "Go on," she tells him, already heading towards the building.

The heat's already on in the car and the second Steve closes the door the sound drops-off, everything falling numbingly quiet. The rain drops thick and heavy against the glass and he sighs, taking a moment to sit before he realizes he's dripping all over the leather seats.

Steve's always been a little intimated by Peggy's car. The Alfa Romeo Giulia is just enough flash that he feels he should take his shoes off before climbing into it, whether it's raining or not. Peggy's casual about the car the way she is with most of her possessions, so when he goes in search of a towel or something he can sit on he comes up with a packet of Kleenex and not much else.

He does his best to dry the leather with the tissues and then spreads his jacket, inside out, over the seat before resettling.

The interior smells like Peggy's perfume, something fruity and light with just a nip of spice. He loves that smell for its familiarity and he breathes it, lets it soothe him as he sits, slumped against the fine leather seats with his eyes closed, it almost feels as good as coming home. Almost.

"There we go," Peggy says, sliding behind the wheel and thrusting something into his arms.

Steve opens his eyes and looks down. "Jesus, I can't believe I forgot." 

It's the plant his mom got him when he moved into his dorm for college. He's never been particularly good with plants but it's a hearty little thing and still growing strong years later. 

There's a horrible swell inside him, all the grief and hurt hitting him at once and Steve scrunches his eyes closed and breathes slow and deep until the feeling passes.

"Are you alright?" Peggy asks him, softly and then, "What a silly thing to ask. Of course you're not. Come here." She settles an arm across his shoulders, tugs and he lets himself tilt towards her, buries his nose against her neck and breathes: the smell of her shampoo, her perfume, the soft fabric of her jacket and, above all, the solid steadiness of her. 

Sniffling (but not actually crying) Steve asks, "Was it okay? Up there? You didn't--" but he isn't quite sure what he's asking.

"No, I didn't cause a scene, if that's what's you're worried about. I was perfectly polite. Not that either of them deserved it." She huffs, the movement jostling Steve slightly where he's slumped against her. 

"Do you think –" but he bites off the question.

"What?" she prods.

"Do you ever think about alternate realities?" he asks her. "You miss a bus and then – and then the whole world's different?"

Peggy sighs, and it's soft and he knows exactly how she'll be looking at him just from the way her body has curved forward with the exhalation. "Oh my darling, always so dramatic." She pushes him back and looks him straight in the eye. "You'd be miserable with not knowing. You know you would."

"I know," he tells her. "I can't stop thinking, though. How many times, before this time? How long has it all been going on and I've just been here – missing the bus."

"You'll drive yourself mad thinking like that. It doesn't matter. It doesn't make you an idiot for trusting someone, and whether this was the first time she had someone else, or the hundredth, it doesn't make you any more foolish." She nudges him back, smoothes his sodden hair out of his face. "Enough of that. Let's go home."

He stares at the plant in his lap, pointedly ignores his apartment keys where Peggy's dropped them in on the center console. "Yeah," he says. "Home."

………………………………………………………

Angie has the fold-out couch made-up by the time he and Peggy arrive, Steve toting his suitcase and rescued plant, and Peggy with the bag she'd returned with when she'd ventured back into Steve's place. His old place.

He genuinely can't think what might be in the bag; he'd thought he'd grabbed everything he needed, everything important, but the plant in his arms is testament that he might not have been thinking clearly.

"Come here, Honey," Angie says, and then drags him into a hug. She kisses the top of his head and Steve's torn between rankling at it and loving it. He knows that's exactly why Angie did it. "You're both way behind. Get your butts changed into something comfortable. I've got hot chocolate warming on the stove, the most decadent brownies in the world and a whole stash of old movies. You're holding up the show."

Dutifully, Steve fishes his pajamas from his suitcase. He dries off and changes and lets Angie ply him with her homemade hot chocolate and brownies while he sits sandwiched between his two closest friends and watches 'To Catch a Thief'. 

Midway through 'Witness for the Prosecution' Steve realizes he's stopped thinking about Sharon and alternate realities, or how much of an idiot he must be to have been so clueless. His head tilts onto Peggy's shoulder and Angie pats his leg where it's draped over hers and he falls asleep.

………………………………………………………

In an ideal world that would be an end to it. Steve could nurse his feelings of idiocy, inadequacy and betrayal in private and with the support of his friends. He has enough experience now to be very practical with his heartbreak.

But an ideal world probably doesn't include the incestuous working conditions of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art's Renaissance Department. He barely makes it three hours before Phillips peers at him critically over the top of a Veronese he's restoring.

"What's the problem, Rogers?" he asks gruffly. 

Peggy offers a chagrinned little smile and, when Steve doesn't reply, says, "Steve's broken-up with his girlfriend, I'm afraid."

"That sucks," Darcy offers, sidling over to pat his shoulder. "Was she screwing the milkman behind your back?"

"Darcy!" Peggy hisses at the same time that Steve says, "A male model."

"Wow." Darcy blinks at him, her eyes comically wide. "I mean, I was joking but. Holy shit. That's just incredibly shitty."

Steve shrugs, glumly. "Thanks. I think." 

"You're making me cry," Phillips drawls. He doesn't look the least bit sympathetic, but that's not surprising. Steve suspects the man only possesses a single facial expression: unimpressed.

"A little compassion, if you please," Peggy beseeches.

"It's fine, Peg. Really." Sighing, Steve returns his focus to the sketch he's working on. "I'd just as soon stop talking about it anyway. It happened, it's done. I'll be alright."

Peggy chucks him affectionately on the chin. "That's the spirit." Then she winces because she's apparently smeared him with paint. He waits while she wipes it from his face.

"You need to get back out there," Phillips advises. "Straight away, before you have a chance to get gun-shy."

"No offense, but that's horrible advice," Darcy counters. "A little time to get over a break-up is smart. Besides, being single isn't the worst thing to happen to a person."

Peggy nods. "Yes. Take as much time as you need."

"Thanks guys," Steve says. "But I think I'm about done with the whole dating scene."

Phillips gestures with his hand 'there, you see!' and looks smug, "He's waited too long already!"

Peggy rolls her eyes. "This happened yesterday!"

"You're talking to me like I'm an old fart who doesn't know what's trending with the kids today. It's all about instant gratification with you people; nobody's got any patience anymore. There's those apps you download, what're they called—" he snaps his fingers. "Yahoo and Google where you don't even have to find someone you like by doing similar things, you just walk around and your phone stalks the population. Gives a little chime when you're close to someone interested in sex. Buy one of those. Use it."

Darcy gapes. "Yahoo?" she mouthes, snorts. "Yeah, you're real hip there grandpa. Seriously, how do you even function in the world?"

"Anyway," Peggy says. "I'm sure everything will work out just fine, Steve. You just need to be patient, give yourself some time."

Steve shakes his head. "At this rate I doubt I'll ever find the right partner. With my run of luck? No," he decides. "I'm tired of finding new ways to be hurt by people I trust and care about. From now on I'm concentrating on my work, and my friends. No more romance."

Darcy scoffs. "You know what they about people who insist they're gonna 'focus on their work'."

"Well, I mean it."

"Work's not enough, kid," Phillips tells him gravely. "You need to find someone to share your life with and believe me, it doesn't get any easier to find later on. In fact, just the opposite."

"God! What happened to good old platonic pals being pals?" Darcy grumbles. "Non-sexual soul mates, friends-for-life with no benefits outside of being awesome friends together."

Phillips frowns at her. "What are you talking about?"

Darcy scoffs, and then speaks very slowly, enunciating carefully, "You're entire worldview is reductionist and outdated."

"Can we not talk about this anymore?" Steve shouts, and then slumps, immediately penitent. "Sorry. I'm sorry just … I'd really prefer we talk about something else."

An awkward silence settles on the workroom and Steve might feel a little bad about causing it but mostly he's relieved to have put an end to that whole discussion. 

"Hey," Darcy says, bumping shoulders with Bruce who's been quietly working with that sort of focus that means he hopes everyone's forgotten about his existence. "You don't want to get in on this?"

He raises both his hands up, 'I surrender'. "Uh. I'm just here to work."

"Your eyebrow twitches when you're trying to keep your mouth shut."

Bruce slumps. "It's not my business," he says, but then he looks Steve right in the eye and says, "I know it's tough right now, and whether down the road you want to try another relationship, or whether you decide you want to be single. Either way, maybe this is a good thing. Take some time to get to know yourself again. Maybe take a class, I've had a lot of positive results from yoga."

Darcy pats Bruce on the head, fondly. "Aww. You're so sweet. I threw-up in my mouth a little. Seriously, yoga?"

………………………………………………………

Steve suspects he might be better at the whole 'post-relationship' process than he is at actual relationships but it's just – he gets a lot of practice. It helps that he wasn't with Sharon all that long, even if they'd been sharing an apartment.

What he's going to miss, he thinks, is that easy camaraderie they'd had. Right from the beginning when they'd bumped into each other at the free bar during one of the Gallery's fancy gala events and banter had turned into conversation and they'd spent most of the evening talking with one another and complely failing to mingle.

Even their careers had fit together because she was an excellent photographer but she had very different artistic tastes and Steve loved arguing the merits of Abstraction over Dada with her. How she'd always shake her head and say, "I can't understand how you can work on Renaissance art all day and then come home and defend Kandinsky and Picasso to me."

And Steve would say, "I like what I like."

"Well, I like this," she'd say, which is how they'd ended up with a framed poster of Duchamp's LHOOQ in their living room, which made Steve cringe every time he had to walk past it, and stared at him accusingly when he'd try to watch TV. 

There weren't any fireworks between them; they weren't prone to fits of intense passion, but Steve had thought maybe what they had was better. They could talk and make each other laugh and every moment between them was undemanding and effortless. When they were together they slotted into place and when his landlord started trying to raise rent, it hadn't even crossed his mind that this was a big step for a relatively new relationship: because why not? Sharon had the space and she wanted him there, and they spent so much time together already. It didn't have to be a big deal, and it wasn't.

Not until he came home and found her in bed with someone else and Steve realized he had no where to go now. No place to live except his best friend's couch.

If she knew she wasn't serious about him, why did she encourage him to move in? That hurt almost more than the fact that she cheated or lied. That she'd cared so little for him she'd led him on and entangled their lives even more before kicking him to the curb.

………………………………………………………

Director Nick Fury bursts in on the Renaissance Department at the end of the week. They're mostly left to their work up here, and they've negotiated terms of co-habitation a long time ago because Fury rarely sends them new faces. Darcy started as an intern to fill a course requirement for a semester and Steve isn't entirely sure what her position is now but she's been with them for over three years. Their most recent addition, Bruce Banner, has been with them six months and Phillips still side-eyes the man like he expects him to flip a table over, burn the priceless art and then jump out a window and go running down the street naked.

The point is, on the rare occasions Fury pays their upstairs studio a visit it inevitably causes a stir because the man strides purposely everywhere he goes and never uses 'an appropriate indoor voice' or, apparently, demonstrate the appropriate amount of awe and respect to the art. 

"Rogers!" Fury barks, striding through the open door of their studio.

"Jesus, Christ!" Phillips barks back. "Are you trying to give me a heart-attack?"

"Sir!" Steve says, startled up from his seat where he'd been staring at a painting of a milkmaid he's supposed to be restoring.

"Oh my god," Darcy gasps. "Is that a new assignment for Steve? He's going to the thing! Is he going to do the thing?"

"What thing?" Banner whispers.

"You know," she hisses. "Shh, shh!" 

Nick ignores this entire exchange blithely, pausing only to spare Steve an amused glance and say, "At ease, soldier." Then he continues over to an empty easel, removing the protective cloth cover from the canvas with an elaborate flourish as he sets the painting into place. "Whatever you're doing, drop it. This is priority number one."

New pieces always garner a certain amount of attention, and Steve isn't the only one edging closer to get a look. "Oh my," Peggy breathes.

"Look at this piece of crap!" Nick's saying, gesturing to the painting. "This dude's face is almost completely lost! You're going to need to start from scratch on it."

Nick Fury isn't the sort of person Steve ever thought he'd encounter in a gallery, let alone curating for one as prestigious as the Met. There are differing stories as to how the man lost his eye, ranging from the banal (car accident), to the unlikely (art heist) to the extreme (bears). Nick Fury tells these stories himself whenever someone's so brazen as to ask, and it's never the same story twice. Whatever happened it was clearly violent, as the deep scarring that peaks out beneath the edges of the eye-patch he wears indicates. He wears dark-colored and frighteningly well-tailored suits that are always in pristine condition (Darcy theorizes that the man is incapable of sitting down ever and that's why his clothes never wrinkle). 

True, as the public face of the gallery Steve imagines it's probably important Nick make a good first impression but the suits are clearly bespoke (he pays for it with the money he makes from his off-hours art-heists, of this Darcy is confident). 

The real reason Steve finds Fury an unlikely boss is the fact that the man doesn't seem the least bit interested in art. This is indicated in the way he carries priceless paintings around like luggage, and talks about them as if they were his unruly employees and not, as it happens, precious and beautiful pieces of history. 

He uses words like 'dude' to refer to gentlemen in Renaissance paintings, and 'crap' to refer to the paintings themselves.

"Oh my god!" Steve gasps, when he finally registers the 'crap' that Fury's placed on the easel. "That's Titian's The Bachanal." 

"Here it is!" Darcy squeals, right as Steve's legs shiver out from under him, pitching him sideways as he slumps. Thankfully, Peggy's situated herself nearby and catches him easily, her arm around looping around his waist. 

"I don't get it," Banner says. "Was that the thing?"

"Pull yourself together, Rogers," Phillips grumbles.

Fury continues to ignore everyone, fixing Steve with a threateningly expectant look. "I want to see your ideas by the end of the week." Then he strides out of the studio every bit as abruptly as he burst into it. 

Darcy gets control of her cackling laughter long enough to ask, "What's with you and the whole 'weak in the knees' thing?" One hand is resting on her cocked hip, and the other she extends towards Phillips, flexing her fingers 'gimme gimme'.

"It's not a 'thing'," Steve grumbles, glaring when Phillips slaps a ten-dollar bill into Darcy's outstretched hand. "It's just something that happens sometimes."

"I'll say," Darcy says. "Cellini, Bermejo, Ghirlandaio, and now Titian. You didn't do it for that Clouet portrait, though. I guess your knees are discerning."

"Steve likes to be dramatic," Peggy says as she calmly nudges him toward one of the stools.

"That's not true!" 

"You just swooned in front of a painting," Darcy points out, patting him condescendingly on the shoulder.

"I don't do it on purpose!"

Bruce mostly leaves the banter and gossip to everyone else, but he pipes up softly, "Leave Steve alone. He's a romantic." 

"Thank-you!"

"Swooning in front of a painting doesn't make you a romantic, it makes you nutjob. Aw, but you're our nutjob," Darcy croons, ruffling his hair.

Steve bats her hands away. "Sure, but betting on your friends is normal."

"A girl's gotta keep herself in garlic bread." 

"It's just." Steve huffs, attention drifting back to the painting. "Look at it," he tells her. "That's one moment that's been captured, and it's not fleeting like a photograph, one shutter click and done. It's personal. The artist worked on this for a long time, sat with it maybe every day. You can see it in the brushwork, in the colors—"

"It's mostly brown," Darcy notes, frowning skeptically. Everyone gives her a look (everyone except for Phillips, who's trying to ignore their existence). "I'm just saying!" she defends. "It needs a lot of TLC right now."

"You're looking at it but you're not seeing it," Steve tells her. "This one perfect eternity's captured on canvas. I can just tell when I look at it: these people were in love, and they stayed in love until the day they died."

"Babe, they were models. Some of them were probably prostitutes, possibly all of them. That guy very likely had syphilis." Darcy hip-checks him gently. "Besides, it's a painting. If it were real life, in two years that girl would be pregnant, and that guy over there would be banging a barmaid."

"Yeah," Steve sighs. "Maybe that's why I like art better than real life."

………………………………………………………

That evening, Steve sketches possible faces to replace the completely ruined one at the center of the Titian while Angie and Peggy watch a show about doctors being highly unprofessional in a hospital.

"It's so romantic," Angie sighs, when two characters start making-out in a locker room only to have to pull apart moments later because a patient has coded.

"I don't think I'm cut out for romance," Steve says, staring at the screen, bewildered.

"You're an excellent judge of character, Steve. Truly," Peggy tells him. "But when it comes to love, you lose all reason." 

He scoffs. "Just haven't found the right partner."

"Darling," and the show cuts to a commercial so she mutes the TV and twists on the couch to give him her full attention. "You've told me some of your relationship history. That boyfriend at university who turned out to be straight and using you as part of a hazing to get accepted to a fraternity, or the time the girl you were dating stopped—"

"Geez, Peg," Angie cries, swatting at her partner. "I thought you were supposed to be helping him feel better, not worse!"

"The point is," Peggy says. "You knew every time that it wasn't a good fit. You just let your head get in the way."

"I didn't know!" Steve defends, but then stops. "Maybe. I don't know."

"This morning when Director Fury brought in that Titian you got weak in the knees."

He huffs. "You gonna make fun of me now, too?"

Peggy shakes her head. "I just wonder -- have you felt that way about person?"

"No one gets weak in the knees over a person, except maybe in the movies."

Angie leans over so she can see him and says, "Honey, no one gets weak in the knees over a painting, either."

Steve shrugs. "It's different. I know what I feel for a painting; I know it's real. People are – they're complicated." He thinks about Sharon and how everything had seemed to be going so well between them until he came home to find her with a model from one of her photo-shoots, screwing around in the bed she shared with Steve. She said she missed being able to wear high heels and look her date in the eye sometimes.

Some of his thoughts must show on his face because Peggy gives him a bittersweet smile, squeezing his upper arm gently. "Don't give up, just yet. If you want love, I promise it's out there. I'd hate to see you give-up on something that you want."

"Thanks Peg. But I don't need all that, romance and relationships. I'm not cutout for it. I can get by on my own."

She gives him another bittersweet smile, kisses his cheek. "You're not on your own. Not ever. You do know that, don't you?"

That, at least, makes him smile. "Yeah, I do. Thank-you. Both of you."

………………………………………………………

The problem with being newly single under less than amicable circumstances is that everyone wants to share their thoughts with him. The Renaissance department being small and close-knit and predominantly staffed by homebodies doesn't get a big influx of gossip, which means Steve's break-up is brought up more than once in that first week alone.

Darcy attempts to encourage some kind of catharsis by referencing only Sharon's negative aspects, and frequently resorting to name-calling. Maybe Sharon wasn't who Steve thought she was (mainly, someone who wouldn't cheat on him with a model she brought-home from a photo-shoot), and maybe they hadn't been together all that long, but Steve had been serious about her. He's not comfortable insulting someone he'd had genuine feelings for, even if she'd ultimately betrayed those feelings.

Nor is he prepared to 'move-on', even if it's just to 'jump in the sack' with someone, as Phillips frequently prescribes, "'Rebound', you know what I'm talking about here. A fling. Come on, Rogers, I'm talking about sex.". 

Nor is he interested in 'finding himself' through meditation and spiritual development, which is what Bruce recommends when he's not adamantly insisting that he's 'just here to work, leave me out of it'. Steve's done the romance thing more than once now. It hasn't worked, and he's clearly doomed to remain single forever; he's prepared to make peace with that.

Which leads to the other difficulty with being newly single and newly homeless. Peggy and Angie have been more than understanding with his monopolizing of their living room. They leave him be when he wants space, and crowd onto the fold-out with him, plying him with popcorn and movie marathons when h's lonely. They haven't once asked how long he plans to stay, or complained about his suitcase crowding the potted plant in the corner, or the weird smell his humidifier leaves in the air. "Stay as long as you like," is what Peggy has said, and she meant it. 

That doesn't make him feel any better about being an imposition. When he's not feeling bad about being constantly under-foot, undoubtedly altering the habits of his hosts, he's feeling wretched for his moments of resentment. Angie and Peggy are practically married and they're happy as hell. Everywhere he looks there are pictures of them together. They're not exhibitionists but they're an affectionate couple so he's stumbled across them kissing more than once and well, Steve's not perfect.

He's not jealous in a way that he wants them not to be happy. He's jealous in a way that he wishes he had their luck, and resentful that he so clearly doesn't. It's their apartment, he'd never ask them to stop on his account, but they're so happy and in love that Steve can't help but feel a little broody.

He needs to move out. 

It doesn't take much apartment hunting before he remembers why moving in with Sharon when their relationship had still been new had seemed like such a good idea at the time. Finding a place near enough to his work, that's affordable, and in reasonably good condition is hard enough. Factoring in natural light and a bit of extra space to maybe set-up an easel? His search is near impossible.

Over a month of fruitless searching but then help arrives from an unexpected source. 

Steve's on a coffee run and he's mostly debating whether it's worth agitating his stomach ulcers with an extra large coffee to combat his fatigue, or if he should play it safe (or not safe, but safe-er) and order a small and hope for the best. He's mostly distracted when he steps up to the counter.

The barista's wearing frames that are almost identical to his own glasses, and when he warns her that he's got four coffees to order and pulls out the paper he'd written the order down on, she gives him a big small and says, "Okay, I'm ready!" like they're setting off on a quest together.

Steve always writes down the orders even though his memory is the one thing he can honestly rely on. It's more that he worries about making a mistake, but he consults the paper dutifully for each order to make sure he's gotten it right.

"And for you?" the barista asks.

"Oh, the small Americano's mine." He hesitates. "Actually, could you make that a large?"

"Sure thing," the barista says. "I'll take extra special care with it!" and she winks. "There's got to be some perk to being the one sent out on the coffee run, right?"

"Yeah. Well, yes, I suppose." Steve shrugs, and when she finishes ringing-up the order he passes over the cash. "Actually, we take turns so I don't mind."

It's not quite lunch hour so the café isn't crowded and there's only one barista behind the counter so it's not strange when she keeps chatting. "Did you have far to come?"

"No. Just around the corner." She keeps looking at him over the rim of her glasses and Steve feels like she's waiting for him to say something else. "Uh. The Met?"

"Oh! That's so neat! You work there?"

"Yeah." He smoothes back his bangs awkwardly because that's a nervous habit he's never been able to break himself of. The barista, Chloe as her nametag says, is friendly and talkative, and Steve doesn't want to be rude but he honestly feels like he could curl up in one of the booths and have a nap he's so tired. Peggy's pullout might be in good shape but Steve's back is not. He needs a certain standard of mattress or it starts to give him even more grief.

Still, he listens as Chloe tells him about her love of art and her brief foray as an artist in college until her parents made her get serious about school, "And yet here I am," she tells him. "Working in a coffee shop every day of the week. Except Fridays. I always have Friday free." And she gives him that expectant look again.

"That's, good?"

She asks for initials for each drink and then tries to guess the full name. "Scott?" she asks as she draws a looping 'S' on Steve's large Americano.

"No," Steve says, momentarily startled by imagining himself going through life as a 'Scott'. Weirdly it feels like he'd have to be a completely different person in order to have a name like that. 

He really needs that coffee. His thoughts get weird when he's punchy.

When the drinks are all capped and initialed and set into the cardboard tray Steve wishes Chloe a good day and then heads over to the table to pick-up napkins.

"Dude, that was painful to watch," a guy tells him, amusement warming his voice.

"What?" Steve asks, accidentally taking too many napkins. He hesitates, wondering if he should take them or try to put a few back.

"Couldn't figure out how to let her down easy?"

The dispenser will not be coaxed into accepting the return of the napkins, and leaving them piled on top seems rude. Steve tucks them in the center of the tray and then turns. "I'm sorry, I don't understand."

That just makes the guy smile wider and shake his head. "Man, you are clueless. It's adorable." He tips his large Styrofoam cup in the direction of the counter and spells it out, "She was flirting with you."

"What?" Steve balks, glances back towards Chloe who flashes him a smile and a wave. Steve waves back awkwardly then turns hurriedly back to his tray of coffees and hunches. "Really?"

The guy throws his head back and laughs. "Oh man. That was the least subtle flirting I've seen in a long time. Seriously. Her number's on your coffee."

"I'm such an idiot."

"Naw, it's alright. Happens, or so I've heard. I mean I've never been that clueless but—"

"Alright, alright," Steve says, smiling as he shakes his head. "Uncle! I give."

"Are you usually that clueless or just not interested? Wait, I'm sorry. That's none of my business." He sets his cup down so he can extend his hand. "Sam Wilson, by the way."

"Steve Rogers." They shake hands and there's something in the easy way Sam talks, friendly and laid back, teasing but no judgment, like they're already good friends. Steve finds himself admitting, "Even if I'd noticed, I don't know. Flirting's not my thing, but I just – I just broke-up so…"

"Sorry to hear that." Sam actually does sound sorry, but then his head tips to the side and he says, "You're not looking for a place, are you?"

"Uh—"

"No, I'm not being weird," Sam hastens to say, raising his hands up. "I swear. Or maybe I am, but with the best of intentions. Well, maybe a little self-interested. Here—" and then he gets up from his table and grabs a neon red piece of paper from the café's bulletin board.

There's giant caps lettering marching across the page: "SUPER-SPECIAL-AWESOME APARTMENT FOR RENT: $500 REDUCED SALE!!!" The bottom portion of the sheet has been cut into little tear away sections with the number listed. 

"Reduced sale, huh?" Steve asks, wryly.

"Don't look at me. That's my roommate. As is the obnoxious color selection. You should have seen his face when he found out they didn't have gold as a color-option in printer ink."

"It certainly makes a statement. Why so cheap?"

Sam shrugs. "Honestly? The room's on the small side. But it's got a lock on the door and the rest of the space is pretty big. Plus, I mean, it's not just me. There's three other people sharing the apartment."

Steve frowns. "How big is this place?"

Sam laughs again. "Big enough. Anyway, just throwing it out there. No pressure. If you're even looking."

"Right, yeah." Sam checks the time and that's about the moment Steve realizes he needs to get back to work. Before he leaves he tears off one of the segments from the obnoxiously neon flyer.

It's not the worst ad he's seen.

………………………………………………………

Steve takes a cab over to view the apartment because, as Peggy had predicted, he'd gotten engrossed in his sketches for the Titian and lost track of time. He doesn't want to be late and make a bad impression on people he might end-up living with.

As it turns out, he needn't have worried because not even five minutes after climbing into the cab he's back on the sidewalk staring up at a large, hideous building all glass and steel and in-you-face modernism. It's the sort of building that architects seem to like building lately, too shiny and industrial to be tasteful, not shiny and industrial enough to feel gratifyingly futuristic. Steve thinks it's horrible.

It doesn't matter, he reminds himself, marching forward. If he's living inside the thing at least he won't have to look at it. The front door is needlessly tall and entirely glass, tinted with something so it's impossible to get a view of the interior. Steve has to lean against it to get the door to budge but once it's moving it swings open easily enough. 

Five hundred dollars, he tells himself. He doesn't have to look at the outside of the building, so long as the apartment ends up being alright, and he's lived in places with stiffer doors where he had to put his entire body weight behind them and they'd screeched and ground their hinges at him for the trouble. Coming home had felt like a work out. It's not like his standards are really that high, not with the rent as low as it is, and the location putting it almost around the corner from work.

The inside brings him up short, though. Everything is white and black and accented in gold, needlessly ostentatious and elaborate. It could be the front lobby of a glitzy hotel or a night club, that's how over-the-top the place is. There are honest-to-god columns, they're marble and glass with colored lights inside. Steve rolls his eyes.

The action brings his attention towards the far side of the entranceway, and he startles. "Oh sorry! I didn't see you!"

There's a very large, incredibly well built man in a black uniform (it has gold accents, because of course it does). There's even a gold nametag pinned to the breast of uniform: Heimdall.

Heimdall's sitting with perfect posture, fingers interlaced and resting atop a glossy black desk, and his eyes are wide open and staring straight ahead. He doesn't even glance in Steve's direction.

"Uh," Steve says, stepping closer to the desk. "I'm here to see about the apartment? Do I just go straight up or—" the man keeps staring and Steve cautiously places himself directly in the man's line-of-sight and waves. Still nothing.

He's a little concerned that maybe the guy's had some sort of seizure or a heart attack or something, he's visibly breathing at least but he's unresponsive, which is bad right? Steve thinks that's bad. He's contemplating phoning an ambulance when he hears, just faintly, the distinctive low rumble of a snore.

"So much for security," Steve mutters, slipping his cell back into his pocket.

There's a chime just as Steve turns and the elevator doors slide open. Steve's first thought is something along the lines of joy because: a working elevator!

Then he gets a brief glimpse of dark hair tousled hair around a square-ish face; a man haloed in light because the elevator like everything else in this building is shiny and filled with reflective surfaces.

The guy's the kind of casual gorgeous that Steve's only encountered in movies, but he barely gets a chance to appreciate it because almost as soon as Steve sees him the man's eyes slide in Steve's direction and his expression morphs from casual disinterest to a look of panic and horror. "Sasquatch!" 

It's more than a little embarrassing that Steve's initial response to this cry is, 'where?', which prompts him to start turning around in case a massive cryptid has somehow snuck up behind him, so he's completely blindsided by the real threat that the attractive man has unintentionally released from the elevator.

Steve's bowled off his feet by something massive and furry that puffs a foul-smelling breath into his face as it knocks him down. Thank-god for the ridiculously plush black carpet or Steve would likely have been brained on the shiny marble floors. As it is, he gets the wind knocked out of him, which of course triggers his asthma. He lies there, stunned and trying to breathe as a dog that's almost as big as he is slobbers all over him while energetically licking his face.

"Oh my god, are you okay, pal? I'm so sorry! Sassy, get off!" The weight's hauled from Steve's chest but that doesn't make it any easier to draw-in breath. "You look a little shaky are you—"

Steve rolls onto his side, away from the blurry impression of man and dog, groping for his jacket pocket and the rescue inhaler he keeps there. Distantly he realizes his glasses must have been knocked askew, or knocked off but he's more concerned with breathing, so with some effort he hauls himself up into a seated position and takes two puffs from his inhaler. 

He waits as the albuterol opens his airways; eyes closed and mostly slumped over his own knees. Even after his breathing eases he keeps his eyes closed because he can hear the heavy panting breaths of the dog that assailed him and feel the presence of the guy, and Steve feels a surge of embarrassment. He hates that he's skinny and gawky and can't even handle a dog jumping up to greet him. Hates being reminded that he's got a laundry list of health defects that set him apart from most everyone else.

When he does open his eyes it's to the guy crouching close-by but not crowding, looking shame-faced with one arm looped around his dog to keep the thing seated although it seems perfectly content and partially proud of itself, grinning as it pants. "You okay?" the guy asks. He holds out his free hand, returning Steve's glasses.

"You should control your dog!" Steve snaps as he settles his glasses onto his nose. 

"I know. I apologize," the guy says, and it sounds genuine at least. "He's a rescue pup, still hasn't got a handle on his manners. You need a hand?" He's clipped a leash on the dog's collar at some point and Steve watches as he switches it to his left hand so he can offer the right to Steve; Steve, who's still sitting on the floor in the front entrance of this swanky apartment complex, paint on his jeans and on his fingers. 

He's never felt so under-dressed and mortified in his entire life.

The guy crouching in front of him is wearing a fucking suit just to walk his dog!

"I'm fine," Steve grumbles, ignoring the outstretched hand and hauling himself to his feet.

The guy rises along with him, his arm still partially extended like he's not sure Steve's even capable of standing, which makes Steve bristle and he's glowering when he meets the guy's eyes, cool blue-grey and strangely intent.

Steve's perfectly fine. His breathing is fine, he hasn't bruised anything with the possibly exception of his own ego, but he's used to that. Somehow though, just as he's opening his mouth to let the guy off the hook, accept the apology and move on, Steve finds himself staring at those eyes and registering the distance between them, or lack thereof. There's a faint scent of cologne something fresh and bright, minty with an undertone of rich spice and Steve's knees just – give out. 

Right from under him.

"Wow. Easy," the guy says, no judgment in his voice at all even though Steve's literally face-planted onto his chest. His arms wrap loosely around Steve's waist to steady him and Jesus. Jesus Christ, Steve just can't. He's a human train wreck! He shouldn't be allowed out in public at this rate! "Just take a second," the guy's telling him. "Head rush, right? You okay?"

It wasn't a head rush, it was Steve being a nutjob and when he takes a breath he gets a whole lungful of the other man's cologne, can feel his suit velevty under Steve's fingers, he can feel the guy's body heat and this is a nightmare. It honestly is.

"You need to control yourself!" Steve snaps, jerking away from the guy's chest and out of reach. His brain quietly reviews what he's just said and he stutters, "I mean, your dog!"

"Naw, he's not my dog," the man says, his mouth curling up at the edges. "I walk him for a neighbor."

"Right. I bet that's what you say to avoid a lawsuit."

"Should we exchange information? For insurance purposes."

"What? No." Steve stutters, wrong-footed. 

"Well, I feel bad," the guy presses. "I should have had him on a leash right away. He just gets a little excited meeting new people. Let me buy you a cup of coffee? Make up for it?"

"That's not necessary?" Steve rolls his shoulders back and repeats, with more confidence. "That's not necessary."

"You sure? You must be the only person in New York who'd pass-up a chance at free coffee."

"Or a lawsuit."

The guy laughs. "That too."

"Thanks, but I have an appointment. I'm probably already late."

"Appointment?"

"I'm looking at an apartment here. Supposed to be meeting my potential roommates in," he checks his watch. "Uh, two minutes."

"Well, welcome to the neighborhood," the guy says. "Potentially. I hope Sasquatch didn't make too much of a bad impression. I swear he means well."

"No, it's fine. I just – Sasquatch? Really? Anyway, sorry about --" Steve waves his hand in a vague gesture that's supposed to mean 'having an asthma attack and then falling all over your chest'. "It was nice to meet you and your huge dong – I mean his huge dong!" 

Steve drops his chin to his chest and takes a long breath, determinedly ignoring how the other man is clearly snickering. "I mean your huge dick. Dog! I meant dog. Jesus, never mind. Keep it on a leash, I'm late—" and finally he's inside the elevator, salvation! He jabs the button for his floor, presses it again and, when the doors remain open, continues to press the button while stubbornly not making eye contact with the guy who's still standing there, holding a fist up to his mouth like that might somehow hide the fact that he's laughing his ass off. Steve quietly prays for, is denied but then the doors slide closed and at least that whole debacle is over.

"Fuck," Steve breathes, slumping into the corner of the elevator. That's another strike against this apartment as far as he's concerned. How can he even consider moving into this place after he's gone and made such an ass of himself? He should probably leave the State. Possibly even flee the country.

The lure of cheap rent and his desperation to move-out of Peggy and Angie's place and prove he's getting on with his life prompts him to see this through. He steps off at his floor, double-checks the apartment number and knocks lightly but firmly on the door of apartment 43.  
When the door swings open Steve finds himself at eye-level with a man's naked chest. 

It's a very pale, impeccably sculpted naked chest. 

"Hello?" Steve greets the moobs.

"A guest!" the moobs say.

Steve has to tip his head back because the man's so tall, but he's rewarded for the effort with the sight of a bright grin and light blue eyes; the man's blond hair is tied back in a man-bun. He's gorgeous, and there is genuine warmth to him as he steps back from the doorway. "Enter, friend!"

"I'm here for the apartment?" 

"Yes! We have a very fine closet for rent!" 

"Okay," Steve says. "Wait, what?" But he's already being half-dragged inside by the heavily muscled bicep that the blond has flung across his shoulders.

"Room! He means room! Thor, come on, we talked about this!" someone shouts from what sounds to be an upstairs portion of the apartment. Steve's too busy taking in the place to bother to look.

He'd been somewhat concerned that the apartment would be much like the front entrance: ostentatious, monochromatic, shiny and relentlessly modern. He's not prepared for the reality, which is a massive two-story apartment with gorgeous, dark natural wood floors and soft, eggshell walls.

The first thing that he notices in the light: there's so much of it flooding through the floor-to-ceiling windows that line one whole side of the main space. Steve's itching to settle into any one of the many window ledges and lose himself in sketching.

There's ample floor space and he picks-out a spot to set-up his easel, so long as his roommates don't mind. But there's a gap just there, perfectly situated in a spill of natural light, far enough from the sitting area that he probably wouldn't bother anyone. The main space is so large that even with four roommates Steve can't imagine ever getting in each other's way.

It's perfect. It's every single thing he's been looking for and the rent is only five hundred dollars. It's barely a ten-minute walk from work, and he wants to stake his claim straight away.

"Hey man!" someone else greets. Steve pulls himself away from his elaborate fantasies of the giant canvases he could fit through the oversized apartment door to turn, and there's Sam. "You made it! What do you think?"

Steve takes a moment to try to come up with a coherent reply. "It's great." 

"Oh hey, this is Thor," Sam says, gesturing to the towering blond man who had opened the door. "Thor this is –"

"Steve Rogers," Steve says as he offers his hand. Thor has a firm handshake, but it's not aggressive. A lot of guys who look like Thor shake hands like they're trying to see how many bones they can break in Steve's hand as they simultaneously attempt to wrench his arm from his shoulder-socket. If anything the firm but gentle handshake makes Steve warm to the blond even more.

"Pleasure to meet you, Steven," Thor says, with a simple honesty in his tone.

"Have you seen the room yet?" Sam asks. "I feel like you should maybe see that first."

Steve's almost about to say he couldn't care less about his room because he's already in love with the place but he lets Sam usher him passed the kitchen area (a breakfast bar and state-of-the-art appliances) to a tall and narrow white door at the far end of the main space. 

"Okay, so—" Sam says, like he wants to prepare Steve, but before he gets a chance he's interrupted.

"Is this the new guy? Why didn't someone call me? No one tells me anything! I'm your landlord, this is my place. I have vetting rights!" 

"We pay your father rent, Stark. Same as you!" Thor calls to the brunet who's coming down the stairs from the upper floor. He has such carefully trimmed and styled facial hair that Steve finds himself wondering if there's a specific name for it. If there isn't already, Steve thinks there probably should be. 

"Oh no," Sam murmurs, leaning over so he can whisper into Steve's ear. "Just, uh, brace yourself." Then, in a louder voice, "Hey, Tony. We were looking for you!"

"No you weren't. Don't lie to me. Okay, let's see." The brunet, Tony, strides – or struts, really – up to Steve and very pointedly looks him up and down, going so far as to perch his chin on his hand as he does so. "Huh."

"Steve Rogers," Steve says, offering his hand.

"I'm not getting it," Tony says, still eyeing Steve critically. He waves his hand in a loose gesture to indicate all of Steve, head-to-toe. "What is this look, Rebel Without a Cause meets Erkel? Combative hipster cuddle-muffin?"

"Excuse me?"

"I mean okay, the glasses may be working for you, I have to give you that. But that shirt—" and here he waves at the slightly oversized but gloriously soft grey jersey shirt with reversible red plaid interior that Steve's wearing overtop of his T-shirt. "Maybe it's too hipster, that's all I'm saying." He throws his hands up, "or is it not hipster enough? I honestly can't tell. Thor, you wanna weigh-in on this?"

"Tony, let the man be," Thor calls, voice somewhat muffled given the fact that he's presently raiding the pantry in the kitchen-area.

Tony snaps his fingers. "Maybe it's the hair—" and actually reaches out like he's going to mess with Steve's hair except thankfully Sam intervenes.

"Hey, wow. How about we show Steve his room before we start assaulting him. How about that?"

Tony jerks his head back, so affronted that Steve isn't sure if the man's serious or teasing. "I'm sorry. I thought this was a done deal. Weren't you the one who kept vetoing all my picks?"

"They were your hook-ups, Tony, who you hadn't gotten around to asking to leave."

"Uh, what's your point?"

"So," Sam sighs, long-suffering. "We're not renting out the room to someone you slept with!"

Tony blusters. "How do you know Steve and I aren't going to hook-up, huh?" he throws an arm over Steve's shoulders dragging him over until he's tucked into Tony's side. "We have chemistry. I could feel it from across the room!" then he tucks his head close to Steve and purrs, "How about I show you around?" and then notices the hearing aid that Steve has hooked over his right ear and says, much louder, "Shit, can you actually hear me right now?"

Steve carefully unhooks the arm from around his shoulder. "Yes. That's what the hearing aid is for." He looks to Sam and asks, wryly, "Is he always like this?"

Sam shrugs. "Hey man, you wondered why the rent was so cheap. Now you know."

"Not true!" Tony cries. "Lies and slander. If you really want to know why the rent is so cheap—" and he pushes open the door they've been standing in front of to reveal the bedroom. Only….

"It's a closet," Steve says, blinking into the space. There's a single bed against one wall, a dresser sitting kitty-corner. There's a nightstand with a little potted plant that's turned mostly brown with neglect.

"Don't be ridiculous," Tony says, crowding up behind Steve and forcing him further into the space. "Closets don't have windows."

Steve glances at Sam, who's covering his face with one hand like this is one train wreck so horrible he can't even watch.

"You're serious?" Steve wonders.

"Oh, I never joke about closets," Tony tells him. "Besides, this is the closet!" He pushes open the door opposite the bed to reveal a massive room, brightly lit and crammed with shelving and shoes and clothes. "How much room do you need to sleep?" Tony asks, rhetorically. "But shoes? They need their space."

"Tony, I swear to god," Sam mutters.

"We share this stuff," Tony continues, waving his hand around in a manner entirely too dismissive given that he's started fiddling with a remote control that's opening drawers at random and Steve catches a glimpse of five separate drawers filled with expensive watches. "I don't know how much we have in your actual size. And your – unique – style but get creative. Fashion is about fun."

Steve quirks an eyebrow. "Oh. Is that what it's about?"

"Problem?" Tony asks, and suddenly his flippancy is gone, revealing a steely core that hints at an ability to wreak havoc and destruction at the slightest provocation.

"Hey, it's cool. We're all cool here," Sam intercedes. "Everyone's entitled to their own opinion.

Which is about when Steve realizes he'd said that a little more dryly than he'd meant.

"Sure, let's be all freedom of speech, freedom of thought," Tony says. "If you're going to veto one-night stands, I'm going to veto the angry little hipster warrior over here who's intent on destroying my way of life!" He turns to Steve, steps forward and continues, "Hey there, Prickle-Pants. We're all models so, something to consider."

"I'm sorry," Steve says. "I didn't mean for that to sound like it did. I just –" he takes a breath, braces himself. "My ex, she left me for a model so."

Tony starts shuffling awkwardly, eyes sliding from the wall of shoes up to the light and away again. It's confusing until Steve realizes what's going on. He smiles despite himself, "It wasn't you, Tony."

"Thank god! I don't want that to happen again." He claps his hands. "Anyway! We accept cash, debit, credit, cheque. Cash. Did I mention cash? We actually have a lot of people interested so, what do you do exactly?"

"Oh. I work over at –"

"You work?" Tony flings his arm over Steve's shoulders again. "I like you! Did I mention that you're in the lead for the apartment?"

A woman appears, slinking in through the front door wearing a pair of skinny stilettos that look as if they could be easily used as a murder weapon. Steve's been around a lot of beautiful women, but there's something that sets this one apart. A sort of menacing quality to her attractiveness that clearly says, 'look, but never ever touch'.

"You're picking our new roommate without me?" she asks. 

"Hey, Nat," Sam greets. "Steve, this is our other roommate, Natasha. She's also a model."

Natasha cocks her head. "Problem?" there's a faint suggestion of an accent rounding out her vowels.

"Steve's hubby dumped him for a model. He's still bitter," Tony whispers loudly. "Anyway, this can be a group decision. I'm down. I mean, I never mind that this is technically my apartment and my building—"

"This is your dad's building," Natasha corrects.

"Pssh," Tony dismisses. "Time to vote! All in favor?" and he raises his hand. As does Sam and Natasha after shrugging casually like she's only partially invested, and Thor, who's on the opposite side of the apartment, body twisted in some horrifying stretch that involves contorting his limbs in such a way that he resembles a pretzel. "Is that – are you raising your hand or that part of shavasana?" Tony calls, and then turns to Sam, "Is he raising his hand?"

Natasha rolls her eyes. "Shavasana is corpse pose. Does that look like the pose of a corpse?"

"It could be. After a horrifying accident. Anyway, it's unanimous. When can you move in?"

"Hold on. I haven't decided if I want the room!" Steve cries, and then suddenly all four of his potential roommates are standing in a row, arms crossed and staring at him. Steve's still trying to process how Thor untangled himself so quickly.

"It's fine," Sam says, obviously the peacemaker and also, possibly the only sane one in the bunch. "No rush."

"Uh-uh." Tony shakes his head. "What's going on here, Glasses. Walk me through your thinking." Then he starts counting things off on his fingers, "You've got top-of the line kitchen appliances, brand new, barely even used because, let's face it, no one here can cook. All this floor space, look at it. I mean, go wild. Move in some furniture – or don't. Do you need some furniture? I can buy you some furniture if you need it. But like, that bedroom's fully furnished and the rent, you're not gonna find anything out there for the price."

Tony has a point, and it's not even the size of the room that's the problem because Steve's lived in smaller spaces before. Hell, his dorm room in college was smaller and he had to share that with a total stranger. He's already in love with the main living space and he's counted over fifteen different spots he could easily curl up and sketch for hours. It's beyond perfect.

It's just that he's not sure he can imagine himself living here. The place is glamorous, even that plain single bed budged against the wall in the closet-come-bedroom is fancier than any bed he's ever slept in. Sure, Steve may have grown-up poor but he's been doing alright lately, except he's felt under-dressed just looking at the building from the street. He'd be living with four models and he's not sure what that will do for his self-esteem. 

The idea of four roommates had been daunting enough, Steve's very close with his friends but he doesn't have many. Now, faced with the reality of these potential roommates, seeing their ease with one another, their familiarity and playfulness, he wonders how he would fit into the dynamic. 

"Hey man, don't let us bully you," Sam says. "Keep the place in mind, if you just started searching. Call at the end of the week and let me know. That sound cool?"

Steve nods and beats a semi-hasty retreat.

Two days later, he calls Sam. "Hey. So, is that room still available?"

………………………………………………………

Tony arrives at Peggy and Angie's apartment in a shiny Audi, directing a moving truck to park behind him on the curb, and text-summons Steve to come down and let them in.

"Okay, just follow this guy," Tony says, waving the movers in Steve's direction. "He'll tell you what he needs."

"Tony, what—" Steve does not have enough stuff to warrant a whole moving truck, though admittedly he has more than he would have been able to pack into Peggy's Alfa Romeo. 

"Don't worry about it," Tony tells him. "How can I help?"

By which he apparently means 'how can I direct other people to better help'. Angie and Peggy are somewhat surprised to find that their assistance is no longer required. They stand off to the side with Steve, watching in awe as Tony chases the movers about the apartment, directing.

"It's like you're being abducted and we're just standing by and letting it happen," Angie whispers.

"Excuse me, not that cupboard. That is actually a family heirloom," Peggy says, to which Tony snaps his fingers and calls at the movers, "Come on, pay attention. Not that."

Steve's personal belongs, including his easel and his new mattress are strapped down into the truck, which pulls out ahead of them, all of it happening within a half hour.

"Well," Peggy says, standing in front of Steve on the curb. "I suppose this is it. I'll see you at work tomorrow and you can tell me how you're settling in."

"We can still drive you," Angie says.

"I'll be alright. Thank-you, for everything."

"Any time, sugar," Angie promises and they both give him a hung and purposely ignore the faces Tony is pulling at them from the Audi.

Steve doesn't quite know what to make of Tony Stark. They don't have that far to travel but Steve's moving away from two people he's known for a long time and into a place with strangers and it starts to sink in all at once. The adjustment period that's ahead of him, the getting to know you.

Might as well start some place.

"So," he says when Tony comes to a lurching and reluctant stop for a red light. "How did you get into modeling."

"Who, me?" Tony shrugs. "Teenage rebellion? I don't know, some kids steal lip gloss I do this."

"You became a model to … make your parents angry?"

"Well sure. I mean I did the whole college thing. Got a masters in electrical engineering, physics and –"

"I thought you said it was teenage rebellion?"

"Sure," Tony says, sparing a glance before he's back to staring down the light, waiting for it to change. The moment it flashes green he jumps on the gas. "I started MIT when I was 15."

"Fifteen?"

"And sure, the plan is to take over my dad's business some day but, look at me," and then, horrifyingly, he turns his face fully in Steve's direction despite the fact that he's driving down a busy New York street. "I can run a business any time, but these looks have gotta be shared with the world."

Steve frowns. "How is this rebellion?"

"Oh, my dad hates it! Totally. He tried to cut me off but then I became successful so then he just gave up. Every so often he tries to tempt me back to the company and I send him my latest photo spread – it's a whole thing."

"Right, of course," Steve says, not understanding any of it and suspecting that he may never understand Tony.

………………………………………………………

His roommates have no problem with him usurping a corner of the main floor for his easel. Everyone keeps strange hours, which means that sometimes he has the place to himself for the whole evening.

The window ledge is every bit as perfect a place to perch as he'd imagined when he first saw the space, and with one of the colorful throw pillows at his back he can sit for hours. He loses track of time and when he glances up the sky's gone dark and Natasha has appeared at some point with a knitted blanket and a book.

He frowns at her since he never heard her get in, and she smiles. "I win." 

"Win?" Steve wonders.

"We had a bet: how long you'd stay there sketching, ignoring the rest of the world." She checks her watch and nods to herself. "I win."

"Sorry." Then he winces again. "Wait, 'we'? When did everyone get home?"

"Two hours ago," she tells him with a shrug. She's quietest of his new roommates, and the most inscrutable.

"Uh—" Steve starts but his eyes catch on a familiar shape wandering about in the apartment across the street and he's so surprised that he almost knocks his sketchbook off his lap.

"Everything alright?" Natasha wonders, watching his flailing with amused curiosity.

"Yeah, of course. It's just. Everything's good." He turns his back to the window and scratches his neck and then, because she just keeps staring at him, he slumps. "I Know that guy," he admits, pointing over his shoulder where he is very carefully not looking. "Well, not 'know'. We bumped into each other the other day."

Natasha sets the book aside and joins him by the window. "Careful," he hisses at her. "He can see straight over here!"

"Relax," she tells him, and then leans so far forward her face is almost pressed to the glass. "Mm."

"What? What does that mean?" Steve glances over his shoulder, first at her, and then at the apartment where the man from the elevator with massive uncontrollable dog is wandering what looks to be his kitchen.

"That's Jim Buchanan," she tells him. "He's a fashion executive, some hot new thing in the business. You like him?"

"What? No." Steve pauses, steals another guilty look over his shoulder. "I mean. He's alright." Natasha's look turns sly and she bumps his knee. Steve caves, again. "When I said we'd bumped into each other? I meant that literally. It didn't go well. I made an ass of myself, pretty much." 

Natasha smiles. "That's what I like about your, Rogers."

"What, that I'm constantly making an ass myself?" She smiles at him and pats his knee. "Really?" and she wanders off, blatantly ignoring him and his question. "Natasha!"


	2. Chapter 2

Steve almost sleeps through his alarm clock. That's how his Tuesday starts. 

When he drags himself up from under his blankets there's a sharp twinge between his shoulder blades. "Shit," he mutters, but he knows he has only himself to blame. He's been stressed and sleeping on a pullout bed for the passed few weeks. He hasn't done anything to take care of himself, not even soak in a bath for an hour or two, and now his torqued spine is making it's displeasure known.

He tries to do a bit of the stretching his chiropractor recommended for his scoliosis but he doesn't have much time and nothing's releasing anyway. It's twinge is so irritating he almost asks Thor if he'd mind pressing on Steve's (or walking on it) just to coax it something more resembling alignment but the image of Thor happily squashing him into a pancake makes him think better of it. He missing Angie and her talent for 'do it yourself chiropractic' already.

He has a dark suspicion that it's going to be one of those days, that maybe it would be better for him self and everyone else, if he turned around and crawled back under the covers. Steve contemplates calling in sick as he brushes his teeth, but he needs to save every one of his sick days for when he'll inevitably need them for actual sickness.

No one else is awake when Steve emerges from his room, which means there's no coffee brewing. Steve considers himself a good person, which is why can't bring himself to consider heading into work without caffeinating, so he stops into the coffee shop on the corner even though he knows there will be a hellish line.

He's late, doing a horrible job of rushing in the direction of work and trying to show his morning coffee the appreciation it deserves so it's his own fault for not paying attention. But then again, this particular dog doesn't have a good track record for being considerate so Steve can't take all the blame.

Either way, he's attempting to stuff his wallet into his bag, drink his coffee and cross the street when there's excitedly loud 'BOOF!' – his only warning – and then he's unceremoniously attacked.

Someone else -- someone with more upper body strength -- could likely have supported the dog's weight, and then it would just be an excitable and oversized puppy greeting someone on the street. Steve manages to brace himself but still ends up on his ass in the middle of the sidewalk, his extra large Americano all over his jacket. 

It's clearly just one of those days.

"Sasquatch!" Jim shouts, jogging up. "I'm so sorry! He pulled the leash right out of my hand and – hey, it's you!"

"Obedience training," Steve recommends, trying to brush some of the excess coffee off his clothes before it can seep-through. "For both of you."

Jim's laugh is unselfconscious, loud and light. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he says as he clasps Steve's arm and drags him onto his feet. "He must really like you, though. He pulled the leash right out of my hand just to come say hello."

"Don't blame the victim, Jim. That's just bad manners." Steve's relieved to see that the bulk of the coffee has landed on his jacket, which he can toss in the wash when he gets home. At least he doesn't have to sit around in stained clothes all day.

When he looks up from his damage assessment he realizes he's still in Jim's personal space, holding onto Jim's arm like he just forgot to let go. As if that's something normal, decent people just forget to do! Jim's storm-blue eyes are watching him as a wave of mortification rises in Steve like a slow-burn, and just as he realizes this is the second time he's made an idiot of himself in front of this man, Steve's legs turn to jelly and he goes toppling forward, face-planting against Jim's sternum.

Steve had really thought it couldn't get any more embarrassing but there you go.

"Wow, hey there." Jim catches Steve as easily as he had last time. "You okay? You uh – you called me Jim." 

Caught up in his personal mortification Steve doesn't immediately realize why Jim should be surprised by this, and it must show on his face because Jim cocks his head to the side, expression turning sly. "I don't remember telling you my name."

Panicked, Steve considers explaining that he lives with a bunch of models who know Jim because they work in the same industry? Well, that wouldn't be all that strange except Steve can't help thinking about how his roommates like to rearrange the furniture in the sitting area so they can watch Jim do chin-ups because his apartment's conveniently located directly opposite theirs. Natasha makes popcorn for Christ's sake, because Steve's roommates are horrible and lack all sense of boundaries unlike Steve who just enjoys sitting on the window ledge to sketch because it gets good light -- the window ledge that conveniently looks into Jim's apartment.

Not that Steve's looking! 

"Uh—" Steve says. "But you did, obviously. You're Jim and I'm Steve, and that's Sasquatch."

Jim raises en eyebrow. "I'm pretty sure I would've remembered your name, Steve. You're kind of hard to forget."

Just like that Steve's minor mortification evaporates. "Don't make fun of me."

"I'm not. Just, well. The last time we met was pretty memorable, that's all."

"Yeah, I know," Steve bristles. "It was hilarious. I nearly had an asthma attack and then talked about dicks and tried to end the most humiliating moment of my life by escaping into an elevator that wasn't going anywhere--"

"Steve, no. That's not what I meant! I was trying to give you a compliment."

"Sure."

"Wait!" Jim calls as if sensing that Steve's about to start walking. "Wait, just a sec. Look, I made you spill your coffee—"

"You didn't."

Jim actually rolls his eyes. "My dog made you spill your coffee."

"But he's not your dog, right? I thought you said you walk him for your neighbor?"

"Christ, Steve! Would you shut up a sec? I'm trying to ask you out for coffee, here!"

Steve narrows his eyes. "Do you always verbally abuse all the people you try to invite to coffee?"

Jim grins. "Naw, it's just something new I'm trying. You know, communicating with certain prickly assholes itching for a fight in a language they might understand."

"I'm not itching for a fight!" Steve barks, then huffs. "Fine. Shut up."

"Sure thing," Jim says, smugly. "Coffee. You and me. Come on."

Steve actually goes so far as to fall into step with the other man before he recovers himself. "Shit!"

"What now?"

"No! I'm late for work! Dammit!" he checks his watch and he's over fifteen minutes late, with no coffee to show for it. 

"Wait up!" Jim jogs to catch-up, Sasquatch loping elegantly beside him even though Steve is legitimately attempting to speed walk. "Where do you work? I could maybe swing by and drop something off for you? My first meeting isn't until eleven. I won't even stick around and chat if your boss frowns on that sort of thing."

Steve has never heard of a boss anywhere who hasn't 'frowned' on their employees chilling out and sharing a coffee with someone during work hours. Not for the first time Steve finds himself wondering at the strange world that is the fashion industry.

"Thank-you, really. I can't. Not now," Steve says as he hurries down the sidewalk. "Some other time!"

Jim drops back, taking the hint, but he smiles and calls, "I'm gonna hold you to that, Steve!"

"So," Sam says, once Steve's survived a clearly cursed day and arrived, successfully, at the blissful evening where he comes home to a massive spread of Chinese food and Natasaha hanging over the couch, snapping her chopsticks at him and telling him to hurry up before the food's gone. 

Somehow, over the course of decompressing over his day, Steve spills the entirety of both encounters he's now had with Jim, which has led to this moment: Sam smirking a little as he maneuvers a piece of chicken into position with his chopsticks and asking, "When are you gonna see him again?"

"Well," Steve says, wryly. "I'm sure his dog will jump me again at some point."

"His dog," Natasha snorts. "From the sounds of it he might be the one to jump you. He's definitely interested."

"I don't know about that. He was being nice."

"Steve, seriously," Tony blusters. "That was flirting. Are you telling me you can't recognize flirting? Please don't tell me that, actually. That would be too sad – and would also explain a lot about you all at once."

"No, I just – maybe he was being polite? Sometimes flirting is just flirting, right? It's not – going anywhere. Necessarily. Not meant to, anyway."

………………………………………………………

Jim has a flaw. Steve is certain of this because while he's an excellent judge of character in general when it comes to falling in love he has yet to make a single sound choice for himself. His first ever romantic relationship crumbled when he corrected an assumption that no, actually he's bisexual, which prompted his boyfriend of the time to assume this meant Steve was doubly-likely to cheat and was clearly incapable of commitment. Steve's next romantic attachment was college with a girl who was uncomfortably attached to Steve's fragile health. Then there was that straight guy dating Steve for a frat hazing thing and, well, his love life hasn't exactly improved from there.

Steve finds Jim attractive and therefore there must be something deeply wrong with Jim. The more his roommates make sly comments at him, tease him for sketching in the window (because clearly it has nothing to do with the lighting and everything to do with the view of Jim's apartment), and so on, the more determined Steve gets to find whatever that flaw is just so he can shut his roommates up once and for all.

"There!" Steve says, jabbing his finger at the glass.

"What?" Natasha asks, blandly. Glancing up from her book.

"He put his bowl in the sink," Steve informs her. "I hate that. The dishwasher's right there."

"I put my bowls in the sink," Tony points out as he struts towards the door, clearly on his way out on a date (or to work, Steve can't tell because, well, models).

"Yeah, and it pisses me off."

Natasha snickers. "Don't you think you're reaching? So he doesn't use his dishwasher, that's hardly a no-go flaw for a relationship."

"Who doesn't use their dishwasher?" Thor asks as he retrieves a cup of yogurt from the fridge and wanders over with it.

"Buchanan, apparently," Tony tells him.

"But he's using it right now!" Thor gestures to the window with his spoon and sure enough, Jim plucks the bowl from the sink and drops it into the dishwasher. Thor looks at Tony, "Don't you have thing?"

"Yeah. I can be late, whatever." 

Steve rolls his eyes and goes back to sketching.

He doesn't stakeout Jim's apartment, but the window really is one of his favorite places to sketch. Every so often he glances up – just to rest his eyes – and if he happens to look towards the apartment across the way well. And if, when he just happens to glance-up he sees Jim paying-off underage prostitutes or bouncing an infant love-child then it only goes to show that Steve's theory is correct: he has horrible taste in romantic partners.

Sure, it turns out that those underage prostitutes are really just girl guides selling cookies, and the love-child turns out to be an acquaintance's kid Jim was babysitting, but that doesn't prove anything.

"It proves you're so gun-shy after your ex cheated on you that you're entertaining bizarrely elaborate theories in order to justify your decision not to go for coffee with this guy," Sam tells him, dryly.

Steve glares because, of all of his new roommates, he'd bonded with Sam the fastest and the guy's supposed to have Steve's back. They've bonded. "That's not true."

"Ooh ho," Sam says. "That was the least convincing thing you've said yet."

"Well, nobody asked you," Steve grumbles.

"You did," Natasha reminds him. "Oh look, he's at the chin-up bar again! This is the best part of my day. Thor! Grab the popcorn!"

"Natasha!" Steve hisses. "Don't spy on him!" 

Every one of his roommates turns to gape at him, and Steve hunches over his sketchbook because hiding in his work is a highly effective way of avoiding this sort of awkward bullshit "That's different."

"My friend," Thor says, wandering back to the cough with a bowl of popcorn that Natasha immediately grabs from him. He claps Steve on the shoulder and continues, "I am looking very hard and I see no flaws in this man." 

There's a collective 'mm' sound from the couch, where everyone else is sprawling, and Steve's not entirely sure if it's meant in agreement or pleasure. He narrows his eyes at them, and then turns his glare across the way to where Jim's leisurely pulling his half-clad body – up and then down – on the chin-up bar he's installed in his apartment.

"How much can you really tell about a person just by staring at them from across the street, anyway," Tony wonders.

"I can tell he has a killer-diller bod," Natasha says, and then grins, shark-like.

Steve sighs. "You're right, Tony. This was obviously a mistake."

"Obviously," Tony agrees. "If you really want to know more about Buchanan you've got to at least talk to the guy."

Steve tosses his sketchbook aside, giving-up on getting any work done. "We've been over this."

"No, no, I know. You don't want to risk getting attached and then finding out he's trouble, I got that. But I'm not talking about a one-on-one potential date-type situation here. What you need is a party."

"A party," Steve echoes doubtfully.

"Sure. Lots of people, music, mingling, and of course a little social lubricant—" he catches Steve's confused look. "I'm talking about alcohol. Loosen you up a bit."

Steve hasn't known Tony for very long, which is probably why he answers the way he does: "Sure, Tony," he says, voice dripping with wry humor because even as he says it he's imagining all the ways that mingling with Jim at a party could and would go horribly wrong. They met in an entrance way and Steve had an asthma attach and talked about dicks. They met on the street and he'd ended up wearing his own coffee. Previously Steve had considered entranceways and streets to be relatively benign – parties are the exact opposite of that.

Steve's horrible at parties. He's horrible at 'mingling' in general.

"Ha! Told you I was a genius!" Tony proclaims to the room in general, although no one has accused him of being otherwise, and he strides up to the second floor and disappears into his room with a flourish and Steve genuinely believes that the end of it.

It's isn't.

The very next day, after Steve's gotten home from work and changed into his softest hoody and warm flannel pajama pants. After he's had dinner and curled up at the end of the couch with a book Tony breezes into the apartment and beelines to him. "Get up! Put on your best suspenders and polish your spats – or whatever it is hipsters do when they're going out."

Steve eyes Tony suspiciously from overtop of his book. "What's going on?"

Instead of answering, Tony leans down until he's almost cheek-to-cheek with Steve and points. 

Across the way, Jim' apartment is filled with people in fancy clothes, mingling with wine glasses in their hands. There are waiters weaving their way through the guests carrying trays of hor d'oeuvres and drinks.

"Oh no," Steve breathes. "What did you do?"

"Me? I didn't do anything. This lovely soiree was already marked on the calendar weeks ago." He stands back up, turns in the general direction of the stairs and calls, "I hope you're all getting ready!"

Steve scrambles up from the couch. "We can't crash his party, Tony!"

"Uh, excuse you, I was invited! You're my plus one."

"And what about them?" Steve wonders, gesturing to where Thor and Sam have appeared in the upstairs hallway to bicker over a belt. Natasha's stepping out of the walk-in-closet with three separate shirts she's draping over her front – careless of the fact that she's showing off her bra (a nice lacy black with red silk) off for everyone to see and she considers which of the shirts look better. 

Blushing, Steve averts his eyes.

"Look," Tony tells him. "No one's going to throw a bunch of models out of a party, okay? See that woman over there?" and he points out a tall, lithe strawberry blond in a form-fitted black dress standing near the window in Jim's apartmetn. "I guarantee she's saying, right now, that 'hey, this party needs more models'. You know how I know that?"

Steve sighs. "No, Tony."

"Because that's my date, actually. She's probably wondering where I am. So hurry up. Chop chop."

"That's not my kind of scene," Steve argues as he wrangled in the direction of his bedroom. "Everyone over there is so –" he gestures to the window. The people in that apartment all dressed in nice suits and fine dresses. "And I'm just—" and he gestures to himself, to his flannel pajama pants and worn hoody.

"Hm. I see your point."

"Forget him, Steven. You're very attractive," Thor shouts encouragingly from upstairs, where he has apparently won the belt-argument since it's fastened around his hips.

"Thanks, Thor. It's just – I won't fit in over there."

What?" Tony asks, squinting. "You won't fit in among other humans? I know I tease you about being an alien visiting from a very repressed but honestly, that's just joking. Mostly."

"Among models, Tony," Steve spells out.

"Steve, Jim won't care about that. The man was genuinely flirting with you," Sam argues, and Steve's a little embarrassed to find that he's become the focus of attention, Thor and Sam hanging over the upstairs railing and Natasha, still shirtless, eyeing him from the closet.

"You know what? It doesn't even matter," Tony says, blithely. "We're going to be late. Late-er. Later than in socially chic and acceptable."

"You really think this guy wants a model?" Natasha asks, and when Steve offers a sullen shrugs, she shrugs right back. "Then we'll give him a model."

Thor claps his hands together. "Excellent! A make-over!"

"Oh no," Steve says and tries to appeal to Sam for help, but find no support there. In moments, Steve's frog-marched into the giant walk-in closet to meet his fate.

By the time he's released Steve can barely recognize himself. They've styled his hair, smoothed it back from his face in a way that leaves him feeling entirely too exposed. He's got on a pair of dark navy skinny jeans that feel vaguely like velvet (everyone politely ignores the fact that they belong to Natasha), and Tony raided Steve's own wardrobe for a white button-down and a vest, but the belt is Sam's and the tie belongs to Thor and the fancy watch that's technically too big for his wrist and that Steve begged not to be entrusted with belongs to Tony.

They made him put in his contacts, and Steve had momentarily considered removing his hearing aid, regretting for the first time his choice of comfort over style. Ultimately, he decides he's not too bothered by the noticeable white loop of it over his ear, and if someone has a problem with his partial deafness well, he wouldn't want to know them anyway.

"You look great, man. Stop fussing," Sam tells him as he's ushered into the elevator in Jim's apartment. He hopes for a sudden power-failure, getting trapped in the elevator significantly reduce his chances of making a spectacle of himself in front of Jim . Again. But no luck. 

The doors slide open with a chime, and Steve's caught-up in the press of his roommates as they coral him purposely down the hall.

The door to Jim's place is open and people have spilled out into the hallway to mingle. A woman in a vibrant purple dress catches Sam's eye and greets him, and Steve loses everyone else the moment he's stepped over the threshold, each of them breaking in different directions.

This is probably a work event for them, Steve realizes suddenly. Like the Met galas Nick forces him to attend, even though he always hunts Steve down and begs him to stop making art puns at the investors and Steve spends the rest of the night sulking by the bar.

Steve knows very little about the respective careers of his new friends and roommates, but this is probably a great chance to mingle and make connections, maybe snag a job. Whereas Steve's here to clandestinely stalk a guy he has an awkward crush on.

For a split second he wonders if he could manage to sneak-out without attracting attention, goes so far as to turn towards the door but then –

"Come on, knock it off."

"I don't see why you have to be such a prude. Just because we work together –"

Steve narrows his eyes and looks and there, a dark haired women in a blue dress that's so dark it's practically black is attempting to politely rebuff a stout, balding man who wants a private photo session. And he says this with just the right amount of oily sleaze that Steve, even ignorant of the Fashion Business as he is, has no trouble understanding what he means.

His inclination to help overrides his general sense of awkwardness and he strides over, linking his arm with the woman's even though she'd tower over him even without the four-inch heels she's wearing. "There you are! I've been looking everywhere!"

She frowns at him but catches on quickly enough. She smiles, a smugly pleased grin, and drops her hand atop his; leans into him as she says, "I've been right here."

"Do you mind?" Steve asks the creep who's clearly intoxicated. "I've got someone she's gotta meet."

"Uh –" the creep says.

"Great, thanks!" and Steve turns, arm still linked with the woman's as they purposely head towards the thickest part of the crowd.

"Sorry if that was out of line," he says, letting the woman go. "It didn't sound like that was going anywhere good."

"No, it's fine," she says. "I was looking for a way out of that conversation anyway."

"I didn't mean to assume that you couldn't manage on your own just – I think sometimes it helps to know you've got some allies around you. When it gets like that, I mean."

She smiles. "You're sweet. Listen …"

"Steve," he offers.

"Steve. I should get back to making the rounds but thank-you. Really." She shakes his hand before she breaks away, and Steve realizes he's now even further from the door and his escape. 

People had moved aside for the woman, but Steve on his own barely garners a second glance. He works his way to the edge of the party, and navigates the perimeter, intent on the exit.

"Oh man, Jim!" someone calls, and Steve hesitates. "You wouldn't believe the piece of heaven that fell into my lap the other day."

"And she signed with you!" 

It's Jim, and he's wearing a pinstripe suit with his hair gelled back, looking like he's just casually strolled out of the pages of a magazine. 

As Steve watches, Jim moves to a group of young models sipping champagne and laughing together, "Ladies!" Jim greets as he brazenly looks them up and down. "The first glass was free, but this one's gonna cost you." 

They laugh and take turns kissing his cheek, and Jim moves on, circulating and greeting his guests. A man who Jim greets as Brock shakes his hand and refers to the two women standing with him in glittery soft-grey dresses as 'samples' and asks, "You want to open them now?"

Bucky grins, roguish, and says, "I'll take you now, and you later –"

Which is when Steve decides he's seen all he needs to. This is the deal-breaker thing that he'd been looking for all week and now, here it is: Bucky's disrespect and objectification of these women, Steve can't help but feel bitterly disappointed. He'd actually started to hope.

He's still heading for the door but he finds Sam first, mingling a group by a fish tank. "Hey man. Everything okay?"

"I'm gonna head out," Steve tells him. "I was wrong about Jim or – or maybe I was right. Either way, I'm going to call it a night."

"You want me to come with?"

"No. I'm fine on my own."

The elevator takes forever and Steve can hear the music from where he's standing in the hall. He has no right to feel as disappointed as he does, especially how he's been carrying on all week, but the truth is he'd been kidding. Jim had seemed like the real deal maybe, and Steve had felt himself starting to believe that the man might be worth a chance.

For all that he'd adamantly been insisting he was done with romance.

Cursing, Steve abandons the elevator in favor of the fire escape. The moment he steps out into the cool night air it feels like he's already miles away from the party; the familiar smell of the city replacing the cloying blending of perfumes and colognes that he hadn't realized had given him a headache until he's broken free of it.

"Steve?" someone asks from surprisingly close, and Steve startles and loses his balance and nearly topples down a whole flight of stairs if not for a hand that shoots out and anchors him just in time. "Crap! You okay?"

"Fine!" Steve says as he clings to the railing and quietly wonders when the heck he became such a klutz. "Everything's fine." He tries to collect himself, and after a minute he manages. "Didn't recognize you without your big drooling dog."

"Yeah," Jim says, smiling. "I barely recognized you, either."

Habit has him raking a hand through his hair, and he winces when he feels the crispness of the gel. "I uh – I live with models, I was their science project tonight."

Jim' eyebrows rise. "You're a model."

"Yeah," Steve says, bristling. "Supermodel."

Jim looks rueful. "I didn't mean it like that. You're not like most of the people I see at these parties; it's refreshing, that's all I meant. What is it do? I mean, when you're not working as a living-mannequin for your roommates."

"Ha," Steve says, but finds himself climbing up the steps, closer to where Jim's seated. "I restore paintings at the Met. Renaissance art. That's why I'm leaving … this isn't my kind of scene."

"Yeah, mine either."

"But, isn't it your party?"

Jim shrugs, sheepish. "Well, my job basically consists of kissing ass and smiling while I do it. It's not really me, you know?"

Steve takes another step closer. "So the split personality emerges: you're really two different people."

"Yeah, you could look at it that way." Jim holds out his arm beside him, like he's got it draped over the shoulders of an invisible person. "We'd both love it if you sat and talked a while."

"I don't want to keep you two from your party."

"As far as we're concerned," Jim says, his eyes soft. "You are the party."

"You're a real dope, aren't you, Jim?" But Steve takes another step closer and settles down onto the step beside the other man.

"Hey, Steve?" Jim says. "You can call me 'Bucky'. It's a nickname my friends gave me. It might be a little odd but I like it a heck of a lot more than 'Jimmy'."

Steve smiles. "Okay."

"So," Bucky says. "Tell me about working at the Met."

Steve tells Bucky about the Titian and how he's been trying to come up with a whole new face for one of the figures, and somehow explaining the history of The Bacchanal of the Andrians turns into Steve attempting to describe what receiving a new piece to work on makes him feel, turns into Bucky talking about love.

"Do you believe in love at first sight?" he asks, at one point.

Steve thinks about, because he's always liked the idea of it but still, "No," he admits. "I don't think anything in life is that simple. But—" and here Steve has to pause because it feels foolish saying it out loud. "I believe in taking a deeper look."

"I like that," Bucky says. "A deeper look."

It feels like time has stopped, and the longer they sit and talk the more Steve forgets how they got here. Forgets about the party and how he'd been so certain it would be another embarrassing experience. 

Bucky changes, too. His posture relaxing and he bumps his shoulder gently against Steve's and he laughs that bright, easy laugh that crinkles his eyes, even when he's admitting that he's getting over a recent break-up too.

"I don't know that I was the best boyfriend. My work kept me away a lot," he tells Steve. "He thought it was dangerous."

Steve cocks his head. "He thought the fashion business was dangerous?"

"For my health. You know, stress and all that."

"I get it. Well, I'm sure you'll find someone."

Bucky looks at him. "You too," he says. Steve feels like he's caught-up in a tractor beam, finds himself slowly leaning forward, caught-up in the pull of Bucky's eyes, the space closing between them.

"Hey! There you are!" and the moment breaks. Steve leans away and Bucky turns to the intruder – it's that guy from the party, the one with the two women in their shimmery dresses who'd introduced himself as Brock. 

"There's someone I want you to meet," Brock tells Bucky.

Bucky perks up. "Was the Chairman able to make it?" 

"No, no. Not the Chairman, but some VIPs from Antwerp."

"Sure, okay. Give me just a sec." When Brock's gone back inside Bucky turns back to Steve with a grimace. "You know that ass I hate kissing? This is Russian ass, the worst."

"I'll take your word for it." Steve gets to his feet and then hesitates. "Hey, Bucky? Maybe next time we could meet on purpose."

"Are you asking me out on a date?"

"Could be."

Bucky's grinning so wide but then his expression closes off and shuts down. "I can't," he says, sounding wrecked. "Just – my schedule's a mess for the next couple of weeks. It's Fashion Week and –"

"No, it's fine," Steve rushes to say. "I get it. Rain check. Good-night, Buck."

He heads down the stairs feeling off-balance because things had seemed to go well between, but maybe that was a brush-off? But then again, it is Fashion Week and he knows from hearing Natasha and the other complaining that it's busy. Maybe it is just bad timing.

Then Bucky calls out and comes scampering down the iron stairs to catch-up. "Steve, wait-up a sec. I'm train wreck, I'm sorry!"

"No, it's Fashion Week, that's your job."

"Naw, that's not it. I just – I usually hide in my work, so I don't hurt anyone – I mean, get hurt."

"Yeah. I know how that is."

"Yeah." Bucky hesitates for just a second, and then he leans in and suddenly they're kissing.

Bucky's hand cradles the side of Steve's head and he doesn't push or pull the way a lot of guys do, to show their strength. He tilts his body and lets Steve come to him. And Steve does, until their fostering warmth between them, their mouthes slow and easy.

Then Bucky lets him go. "Screw playing it safe. What are you doing Saturday?"

"You?" Steve murmurs, his eyes still closed. "Uh, no. I meant – going out with you? If that's what you were offering, which I don't mean to presume just –"

Bucky's laughing softly. "Sounds about right to me."


	3. Chapter 3

"He likes me without the stupid hair, or the fancy clothes," Steve tells Thor for possibly the fifth time as he finishes toweling his hair dry. He's back in his flannel pajama pants, the familiar comfortable weight of his glasses settled on the bridge of his nose.

"I know, my friend. I'm happy for you!"

Steve tosses the towel onto the coffee table and collapses onto the couch. "Thanks for the make-over, though. I don't know if I would have had the courage to go over there without it. I should thank Tony, too, when he gets back."

The party's wound down, and while the others have found their way back Tony apparently had a successful evening and is spending the night at his date's place. 

Steve's trying to think of an appropriate thank-you gift to give to someone like Tony when Thor says, "Who's that?"

Across the way in Bucky's apartment is the woman Steve had encountered at the party, who'd been getting pressured by that drunk asshole. She's still in her party clothes, holding glass of champagne and there's no one else in the apartment except for Bucky, who's in the process of turning off most of the lights, except for a table lamp. Steve tries his best not to think of it as mood lighting.

"It's probably a friend from work."

Bucky slides the blinds down over the windows – the first time they've been closed since Steve's moved in. There's enough light that Steve can see silhouettes, and Bucky and the woman look intimate – bodies leaning into each other.

"I'm so sorry, Steven," Thor says, draping an arm over Steve's shoulders. "I usually have impeccable instincts when it comes to scoundrels."

"No," Steve croaks. "It's not your fault. I haven't been able to trust my eyes or my heart, why should my knees be any different?"

Thor frowns. "Your knees?"

"I'm gonna go to bed."

"No, you can't end the evening on a bad note. Share some non-fat vegan yogurt with me first!" Thor says, and he's already halfway to the freezer before Steve can think to protest so instead he just gives in, settling back into the couch as Thor spoons out two very large portions of yogurt.

Steve tries to avoid looking at the window but he can't help it.

There has to be some other explanation. Yes, there had been a moment at the party where he'd been certain Bucky wasn't anyone he could be in a relationship with, but then they'd had a chance to sit and actually talk and – and this doesn't fit. Bucky hadn't seemed like the sort of person who---

But Steve's a horrible judge of character when it comes to falling in love. He hadn't thought Sharon was the sort to cheat, either.

His eyes dart to the window and there's the woman, still standing with her champagne and coming up behind her and – swinging a baseball bat?

"Oh my god!" Steve shouts, scrambling onto his feet as the woman is knocked forward and collapses, her silhouette disappearing from view. "Thor! Call 9-1-1! Shit! Where's my cell phone!"

"What's happened?" Thor asks, running over with a bowl of yogurt in each hand, but there's nothing to see. The woman's on the ground out of view and Bucky and the bat are both gone. There's only the soft orange haze of light glowing through the sheer blinds.

"He killed her! Thor – he –"

"Steve, breathe. Where's your inhaler!"

"Call – we've gotta call –"

"I'll call the police, you get your breath back."

By the time the police show-up Steve's feeling less shocked and more pissed, because okay, he accepted that he has horrible judgment when it comes to relationships, but this is a whole different level. The blinds are back up in Bucky's apartment, which means when Steve steals a glance he can the police questioning Bucky, even though Steve hangs back from the window. He doesn't think it's paranoid to want to stay out of a sight, given the circumstances. 

"She was there," Steve informs the police calmly. "Standing right by the window and then I saw him –"

"I thought you said the blinds were closed?" the cop asks.

"Yes, but there was no one else in the apartment, and the way the light was I could see their silhouettes. Anyway, I saw him come up from behind her and hit her with – I guess it looked like a bat."

"But you didn't see a body."

Steve huffs, because he's been through this already. "No. When she fell I couldn't see her anymore. Did you find her?"

The cop smirks. "We're looking into it. Now, I have to ask, have you been drinking tonight at all?"

"Excuse me?" Steve balks. "What does that have to do with –"

"If you could just answer the question."

"I – a glass or two earlier in the evening. I was at a party – over there actually."

Thor can't corroborate the story since he was in the kitchen and hadn't seen anything, but he stands right beside Steve with his arms crossed over his chest like a bodyguard. Which is helpful since the cop's attitude becomes increasingly dismissive and Steve almost socks the guy in the jaw for not taking a potential murder seriously.

At least Bucky's taken in for questioning. He's not handcuffed when the men in suits lead him out of the apartment but presumably whatever happened over there to that woman will come out during the interrogation.

Steve can't settle down and even though he has work in the morning he can't even think about sleeping. He stays up but ends up passing out from exhaustion in the early morning, sketchbook still in his lap and clutching his pencil.

When he opens his eyes, Thor's leaning over the back of the couch. "I guess Buchanan didn't murder that woman after all."

"What?" Steve asks, sitting bolt upright. "How do you know? Is it in the paper already?"

"No, he's over there."

Sure enough, Bucky's back in his apartment, along with a cleaning crew tidying-up the remains of the party. Steve tries not to think that this is suspicious, and instead rushes to get dressed.

He calls in late to work and heads directly to the police department to follow-up on his report. The cop isn't any more helpful than he'd been the night before. 

Steve had really been hoping that the police would tell him the woman was fine, that they'd shown up at the precinct when Bucky had been informed of the allegations. Anything more definitive than "No body, no crime."

"How do you explain what I saw?"

The cop rolls his eyes. "According to Mr. Buchanan's statement the woman, Marian Hillary, tripped over a rug, and Mr. Buchanan helped her up."

Steve rubs a hand over his face and through his hair, trying to think it through. "Okay. Okay. And you've been in touch with this, Marian Hillary? She's really alright?"

"I guess."

"You guess? What does that mean?"

"Look," the cop tells him. "We haven't been in contact with her yet. She's out of town on business, but we'll track her down."

"Right, and that isn't suspicious at all."

"Look, sir," and there's enough emphasis placed on 'sir' that Steve thinks this guy would really love to call him something else. "You need to let us do our job here. We're following up on this."

………………………………………………………

The Titian is at Steve's work station waiting for him when goes in that afternoon, and Steve can't ignore how much the face he's roughly sketched for the figure who'd been nearly obliterated resembles Bucky.

He spends the entire afternoon trying to work on any other section of the painting, the colors emerging slowly once again, the sky lightening like the sun's come up. The trees and crash turning lush with each stroke of his brush and that face remains, a stark bare patch at the very heart of the canvas. 

"There's another way to look at this," Sam offers when he catches Steve moping on the couch. "You could have been projecting, man. What you thought you saw Buchanan do through the window could have been your own desire to kill all your exes manifesting." 

Steve blinks. "Are you serious?"

Sam shrugs. "I don't want to put pressure on you here--"

"But," Steve asks, eyebrows raised expectantly.

Sam sighs. "But, you gotta admit it's a little weird. For what you said went down to have gone down, and you and Thor were right here watching the whole time."

"Yeah."

"But neither of you saw Jim leave, right?"

Grudgingly because he can see where this is going, Steve admits, "No."

"Right. So logically speaking the body had to be in the apartment when the cops arrived, and it clearly wasn't. They said they don't have anything on the guy so …"

"Are you seriously telling me I should keep a date with a potential murderer?"

"He's really cute!" Tony calls from somewhere upstairs.

"Stay out of this, man!" Sam shouts back.

"You make a cute a couple," Natasha offers.

"Everyone, please!" Sam shouts, and then he turns back to Steve. "She's got a point though. I mean, you didn't see what I saw when you two were out there on the stairs."

Steve blushes. "You saw that?"

"You like this guy, Steve. Anyone would be able to see it, and it's definitely mutual. I know you have this thing where you're convinced you only fall for the worst sorts of people but – I don't know. This time I think it might be the real deal."

"Because you saw us sitting on the stairs together," Steve wonders. "Sure, there might be some mysterious but valid explanation for what I saw, but why the heck should I start a relationship with a guy when he's already shaping-up to be an even bigger asshole than everyone else I've ever dated?"

"If you don't like what the police are doing, start your own investigation!" Natasha tells him.

"We are trying to be helpful!" Sam glares her and she shrugs.

"How was that not being helpful?" She turns to Steve. "I'm very good with lock picks. You want to go over and check-out his place?"

"What?" Steve gapes. "I'm not breaking into the guy's home! Everyone, stop. Seriously."

Sam claps him on the shoulder. "Face it, man. You're head over heels for this guy."

"Maybe so," Steve admits. "But I'll get over it."

………………………………………………………

It feels like he will, too. He works on the Titian and receives a few calls from collectors interested in private consultation, even accepts a last minute appointment when one of the collectors, a nervous but soft-spoken man seems so distraught that the work might be permanently ruined that Steve can't help but feel sorry for the man. Even it does mean holding a meeting at the apartment when all of his roommates plan to be in.

"Everyone, please keep your clothes on until this appointment is over," Steve calls the next day when the doorbell rings out. 

"They're just breasts, Steve," Natasha shouts from upstairs.

"I was actually talking about Thor."

"What?" Thor asks where he's been wandering around in a pair of black spandex ankle-length pants and nothing else ever since Steve got back from work (and possibly for the entirety of the day).

"Go upstairs if you refuse to wear clothes," Steve hisses. "My client's here."

"You're too sensitive about these things, Steven," Thor tells him prissily, but at least he's heading to the stairs. "Nudity is natural. Your body is nothing to be ashamed of."

Steve glares until he's certain Thor's gone into his room and then pulls the apartment door open. "Sorry about that," he says to the short, bespectacled man standing in a plain beige coat. "Please, come in. It's Zola, right?"

"Yes, thank-you for seeing me. I know it was short notice, but I only recently inherited this work and when I saw the damage – well."

Steve nods. "Let's take a look."

Zola unzips the portfolio he's carrying and removes the painting, resting it on the table behind the couch. It's a Russian piece, turn of the century. It doesn't make Steve's knees go weak but that might just be because he's distracted because the constellation of perfectly rounded holes in the bottom corner of the canvas.

"Yes, you see," Mister Zola says. "Where the mice have gotten at it."

"Well, at least they were very neat mice," Steve says, and crouches to get a better look at the damage.

"My, you have a lovely view." When Steve glances up Zola's looking out the window and of course the whole of their view is relatively nice – the building across the street is a lot better looking in Steve's opinion than this one. But Zola's smirking and very clearly looking straight into Bucky's apartment where Bucky's lifting weights wearing a pair of black shorts, running shoes and nothing else.

Steve can feel himself blushing, but he pulls himself together. "I guess," he says. "If you're into that sort of thing. We usually keep the blinds closed."

That's as much thought as he gives to Bucky until the man comes stumbling into the studio one evening when Steve's working late.

Restoration's a delicate, finicky process that requires just enough focus and skill to make it the perfect thing to keep Steve's mind off of the rest of his life, which he's quietly decided is a mess. Peggy's stayed behind in part to remind him that he has a tendency to be overdramatic about this sort of thing but also because she's restoring a Gossart portrait that she hasn't had much time for because she keeps getting pulled in to assist on other projects.

The heavy curtains have been pulled closed already and they're working solely with two soft spots directed at their respective pieces. Steve honestly hasn't thought about how dark the space must be until Bucky almost misses the stairs.

"Jesus," he gasps, flailing and attempting to recover his balance while juggling a cup of coffee in one hand and an armful of roses. "I thought artists liked bright spaces with a lot of natural light?" 

"Bucky?" Steve blurts. "How did you get in here?"

"I mentioned your name, the guard let me in. Told me where to find you." He seems more than a little pleased with himself about this.

'I'm going to murder Clint,' Steve silently decides.

"So this is Bucky." She's eyeing him critically, but Bucky either doesn't notice or doesn't care.

He smiles at her, sidling closer to the table. "Nice to know I'm being talked about."

"This is my friend, Peggy," Steve introduces. 

"Hey, nice to meet you." Bucky twists around like he's looking for a spot to set the flowers down that doesn't involve resting them on priceless art or on top of a palette but Peggy waves him off.

"I can't shake hands at the moment," she holds up her hands to demonstrate. "The gloves. You understand."

"Oh, sure no problem." He takes a step towards Steve's end of the table. "I'm sorry for barging in. I couldn't wait all the way until Saturday to see you." Then he squints at the canvas in front of Peggy and pauses. "Is this Gossart?"

"You know Gossart?" Steve blurts, excited. Pretty much everyone he can talk about art with is also a co-worker. Angie sometimes humors him and Peg but it's clear that while she loves listening to them carry-on about things they're passionate about, she doesn't have much personal interest in art.

Bucky looks a little sheepish. "I took a couple of art history courses in college." He sidles closer to Steve, which makes Steve panic that he might recognize the face Steve's been working on as his own. It's roughed-in with soft base tones only, and he's changed the features a little, softened the angle of the cheekbones to echo the rounded lines in the rest of the piece. Still. 

When Bucky gets close enough, though, his gaze drifts up to Steve and stays there. "I brought you coffee?" Bucky says, holding up the Styrofoam cup. "I know it's late but I figured I owed you one, and my mom always said it was rude to show-up empty handed."

"Isn't that for house parties?" Peggy wonders, and Bucky just looks bashful and shrugs.

"Thank-you." Steve takes the coffee first because he may like the peacefulness and focus that this sort of work brings him but he's been in the studio for the entire day with the exception of one hour for lunch. Also, it gives him the excuse to lead Bucky away from the incriminating canvas because there's so way he's going to sit around drinking over top of a Titian. Breathing in turpentine and oil paint all day probably wreaks havoc on his brain, but he's not that much of an idiot.

"Do you wanna get out of here?" Bucky asks, following Steve over to one of the break table. "I mean, whenever you're finished, I don't mind waiting. But just to get a drink or something?"

Steve's sorely tempted but he forces himself to shake his head. "I want to finish up here, and it's already late."

"Alright, I just – had to ask. Good night." Bucky leans over and kisses Steve's cheek and then kisses him again, at the corner of his lips. "Sorry if I scared you."

"It's fine," Steve breathes. "You didn't."

Bucky walks backwards a few steps, then scampers up the stairs tossing a wink Steve's way before leaving the studio.

"I'm curios," Peggy says. "Did the police ever find that woman's body?" 

Steve blinks out of his daze and glares at her. "You couldn't just let me have that for a minute."

………………………………………………………

There's a stack of printouts on Steve's bed when he gets home, neatly stapled at the corner. He picks it up, thumbs through the pages curiously before he realizes what it is: someone's looked into Bucky's background.

Apparently the man coaches a little league team in his free time.

"What is this?" Steve demands, storming out of his room. "I told you guys to let it go! Was this you?" he asks Natasha.

She holds up her hands. "I don't even know what that is."

"Information on Bucky. Christ, someone dug-up his grades from college and just – "

"No need to thank me. It was nothing," Tony offers, striding down the stairs with a pair of tinted glasses on.

"Why would I thank you for this? Take it back!" he shoves the papers at Tony, who cringes away from him.

"I don't like to be handed things." 

Steve whips the papers in his general direction.

"I thought this would make you happy! He doesn't have a criminal record – the guy hasn't even smoked pot! He also has a scary-incredible resume; I mean I'm impressed. If he weren’t completely not my type I would date this guy."

Sometimes Steve forgets that Tony has a very strange way of showing affection and support to the people he cares about. "Thank-you, Tony, but you need to think these through a little better. Even if I did go out with him, I mean it's bad enough I have to explain the whole window-peeping thing. How could I ever justify knowing these sorts of personal details? That I had someone look into him?"

"You didn't. I volunteered," Tony argues. "Don't tell him. So what."

"Wait, wait," Natasha says. "It sounds like you're coming around on this date thing."

Steve sighs. "Maybe. I don't know. When I'm with him things just sort of – fit. But then I take a step back and –"

"Isn't that what dating's like, though?" Natasha asks. "It knocks you off-balance a little, which can be a good thing. Look, Tony's dug into this guy and says he's clean. The cops haven't found anything suspicious and – look, I know you're anxious but it's just a date. You're not getting married."

………………………………………………………

It's a test, Steve decides. Since his break-up with Sharon he's been accused of being gun-shy and he wants to prove to himself that if he's choosing to be on his own it's because that's what's best for him. He's not just hiding.

So Steve meets Bucky at a little Irish pub named Clancy's and they have dinner, and then dessert and it's a bit like being in the eye of a storm. There might be reasons why this whole thing doesn't make sense, but Steve genuinely can't think of them right now.

There's something that just feels right about being with Bucky. 

"The fashion world it's," Bucky rolls his shoulders back, a sort of loose shrug. "It's complicated. Everyone's caught-up looking for the next big thing, or some new idea but they're too afraid to actually experience it." He sighs. "I just – I want to know a good thing when I find it."

Steve can't quite hold Bucky's gaze; it feels heavy with meaning.

After dinner Bucky takes him to the aquarium. It's technically closed for the evening but the lights switch on just for them, and Bucky admits, "I used to clean the aquariums here when I was a kid. I've got connections."

"Connections, huh?" They're standing in front of the beluga whales, and the soft blue lights and the quiet make the moment surreal. 

"I wanted to make a good impression on our first date," Bucky tells him, and then nudges him closer to the glass, pointing. "That one's Ben. And over there, that's Betty – Ben's second wife. Whenever I get stressed out I come here, watch them. Try to be more like them."

It's so quiet, just the quiet hum of motors and the distant sound of water and them, their breath because they're standing so close together, the heat from Bucky's body seeping through the lairs of Steve's clothes.

Bucky looks at him and the expression on his face is hard to pin down, leaves Steve feeling like he's floating and sinking at the same time. Bucky looks right at Steve like there's nothing else around them and palms Steve's jaw gently, three fingers curling around the back of Steve's neck and the thumb pressed to the underside of his jaw.

They're going to kiss, Steve realizes somewhat distantly and he looks forward to that with a strange elation, but right now there's just this moment – Bucky looking at him and Steve looking back – and it stretches, like it goes on into infinity and that's good too. He can feel the frisson between them, static buzzing across his skin and heat – it lights him up.

Then Bucky brings their mouthes together -- slow lips working against Steve's, coaxing his mouth ever so slightly open with languid motions. Another moment stretching to infinity, except the kiss turns Steve on hard, wakes him up. He pushes back, any resolve he had left to take this slow, to be cautious, surging away and he opens his mouth to it, his fingers tangling in Bucky's hair. Bucky tastes like the chocolate mousse he had for dessert – rich and decadent and sweet.

Steve makes an embarrassing noise but he's too far gone to think about feeling self-conscious. He shoves Bucky back, pressing him against the nearest smooth surface – the glass of the tank. It would be awkward, with Steve practically crawling Bucky because of their height difference, except Bucky bends his knees a little, curves his body just so and they fit. Somehow, it clicks into place.

"You're not supposed to tap on the glass," Bucky points out, and Steve would swat at him for it except at he's too busy feeling smug over how breathless Bucky sounds.

"You wanna get out of here?" Steve asks.

"Jesus," Bucky breathes, and then, "Yeah. I do."

Maybe it's crazy, but Steve doesn't care. Sometimes the best part of falling in love is that feeling, like a free-fall. Like Alice spiraling into Wonderland.

………………………………………………………

Steve practically floats into the apartment the next morning.

"Oh thank god, you're alive!" Tony cries, popping off the couch. His hair is wild, like he plugged his finger into a electrical socket.

"Yes?" Steve says, slowing to a stop. "I mean, I think so?"

Tony pops off the couch so he can come over and pinch Steve's arm 'Ouch!' and then clap his hands on Steve's shoulders. "I had a runway show yesterday and Buchanan was there and I overheard him talking to some exec about that woman who disappeared – Jim said she was taking a vacation."

"Okay," Steve says, gently trying to ease back from Tony's grip. "Well, that's what the police said, too. What's going on?"

Tony makes a face. "A vacation? Now? You do realize that it's Fashion Week. No one who works in this industry is going on holiday right now. Unless their holiday is coming to Fashion Week."

Steve hesitates. "That doesn't necessarily mean anything."

"No, no. Of course not I just—"

He realizes what's happening and the thought makes him grin. "Tony, were you worried about me?"

"Ew, no." 

But Steve thinks he has Tony figured out now, so he steps up and wraps his arms around the taller man. "You're a good friend."

"Obviously," Tony says, and then a minute later. "Okay, get off me. How did it go? Obviously he didn't bludgeon you with a baseball bat, but what else?"

Steve can't stop smiling. "We're going to Shelter Island this weekend. He says he has something important he wants to tell me!"

"Nice moves, Rogers," Natasha says, and Steve had honestly not even realized she'd been asleep on the couch until she's climbed off it, heading towards the kitchen where Sam has the coffee pot going. She's wearing sunglasses.

"Why are you wearing –" and then he blanches, turns toward the window where their blinds are open because they always are, and looks beyond their window to Bucky's apartment and --

"Shit! I forgot to close the blinds," Steve realizes.

Natasha leers. "Like I said, nice moves."

"I'm living with a bunch of perverts!"

"I didn't let her watch!" Sam argues. "—much."

"Please," Natasha waves a dismissive hand. "There are no secrets between roommates."

Mortified, Steve scurries into his room to hide for the rest of his life.

………………………………………………………

The thing about the other shoe – you know, the Other shoe – is it always drops in that moment when you stop expecting it. This is something Steve knows from experience.

It's a little bit like the Spanish Inquisition in that regard.

By mid-week he feels spoiled. Bucky meets him on the sidewalk on his way to work most days with a coffee for each of them, and Sasquatch dances around Steve's feet happily as they walk to the Met.

They text, mostly just memes and sarcastic one-liners complaining about their respective days, and sometimes they meet at a pub to unwind. It feels like the start of something genuine and good.

So of course, Friday morning when Steve pops out to get lunch he passes a newspaper stand and sees the headline: "Body of Missing Garment Exec Found With No Clothes!"

He can't exactly remember how he gets from vendor to the building where Bucky works; one minute he's thrusting a handful of change onto the counter and the next he's striding through the fancy revolving doors and storming towards the elevators.

Except just as Steve's storming towards the elevators Bucky steps out. There's a stout, bald man in a grey suit who's talking about a runway show but Steve's too rattled to stop and think about how he's just marched into Bucky's place of business. 

Instead, he strides right up to them, brandishing the paper. "Bucky! What's this?" and then, when Bucky just stares at him, clearly confused. "She tripped over a rug and you helped her up, right? Why is she dead?"

The color leaches out of Bucky's face but his expression of bemusement doesn't change. "Wow, slow down. What are you talking about?"

"I saw this woman in your apartment," Steve explains. "I saw—" and it douses him like a bucket of cold water, knocks him sideways. "You killed her. You really did--"

"What?" the stout man asks with a suspicious amount of intensity. Steve's too busy quietly freaking out to notice. 

Bucky puts a gentling hand on Steve's arm, turns them away from the intruder. "What do you mean, 'saw'?" 

"My apartment is right across the street from yours. You leave the blinds open all the time and that night – I was gonna tell you but then – Mr. Zola knows." Then Steve actually processes what he's seeing and pauses. "How do you know Mr. Zola?"

"Steven, my god," Zola says. "We should really talk—"

But Bucky intercedes, all easy smiles as he keeps shifting Steve further away from where Zola's standing. "Steve, why don't we get to the car. We're running late, aren't we?"

Steve lurches back. "I'm not going anywhere with you."

"I think we should all have a talk," Zola says, his voice gone hard. After that, Steve sort of loses track of everything because there's a bunch of things happening all at once.

Bucky turns sharply and punches Zola and somewhere a gun goes off. It's so loud it feels like landing on a cement floor after a ten story drop. His heart hiccups and his ears ring and for a split-second Steve stands frozen – and then his brain catches up and he tried to break for the door.

Brock and another man in a similar dark suit standing on either side of the door, and they've both got gun drawn. Steve comes to a staggering halt, but no sooner has processed the situation than something whizzes passed Steve's good ear that pins the men's gun arms to the wall – knives. Throwing knives and when he turns he sees Bucky.

"Did you –" Steve wonders, but Bucky grabs his hand and pulls him through the revolving doors and then out onto the street. 

Steve tries fruitlessly to tug himself free. Obviously he doesn't want to be anywhere near the people shooting guns, but Bucky murdered a woman in his apartment. 

"Let go! Help!" Steve screams, but Bucky just cups the back of Steve's head and another at his back and Steve finds himself unceremoniously stuffed into the front passenger seat of the car that was supposed to take them on their weekend getaway.

"Let me out!" Steve demands as he tries the door -- Bucky has the safety locks on – so Steve turns his attention to Bucky who's peeling out into traffic, and punches his arm in frustration.

"Ow! Dammit! Would calm down a sec? Jesus! Let me explain!"

"Explain how you're abducting me?" Steve snaps, and punches Bucky again. "Let me out! Why was Mister Zola shooting at me?"

"Because he's an agent of Hydra!" Bucky shouts back.

"What the fucking fuck is Hydra?"

"Hydra's a crime syndicate with ties all over the world. They've had their hands in everything --- human trafficking, drugs, illegal weapons, the works."

Steve quiets. "Are you a cop?"

Bucky tips his head to the side. "Sort of."

"Sort of? What's that supposed to mean? Let me see your badge!"

"I don't have one, I'm undercover!"

"Of course not. That would be too easy!' He punches Bucky in the side, which prompts a bit of a slap-fight but at least Bucky pulls off the road and into an alley.

"You're gonna cause an accident. Would you knock it off? What's the matter with you?"

"Let me out of this car!" Steve says, and keeps pulling at the door handle until the locks release and then he's off.

But Bucky heads him before he can make it even three steps. "I saw you!" Steve shouts. "I saw you murder that woman."

"Calm down a sec, okay? There was no murder," Bucky explains, his hands held up and out. 'trust me – I'm unarmed '. "That was staged for Zola who was on the roof across the courtyard watching." 

Bucky huffs. "Steve, I'm a federal agent. My partner's cover got blown, so we staged it as a way to prove my loyalty. The picture in the paper was planted because Zola was getting antsy when no body turned up. Look –" he continues, taking a cautious step closer. "We've been trying to find an angle to bring down Hydra for a while. This is a huge case. I didn't mean to get you involved in it."

"Jesus," Steve says, rubbing his hands over his face. "Is this actually happening right now?"

"My partner – Maria Hill – and I, we found a way in through the money. They're laundering it through the fashion business somehow. I'm posing as a young hotshot exec, they give me the money and I buy the dresses from Antwerp and import them, and the money's clean."

"They must be selling a lot of dresses."

"They're not, though. They sell barely any."

"That makes no sense. How do they get their money back?"

"I was about to find that out before you came charging in and blew my cover!"

"Well I'm sorry!" Steve snaps. "I was only early because I got excited for our trip!"

Bucky cringes. "Steve, I'm sorry. I didn't plan to meet you, or to get so involved I just –"

Steve's feeling too unsteady to know how to respond, so he dodges. "Don't you have to phone this in or something?"

Bucky hesitates, like he doesn't trust Steve to stay still, or not spontaneously combust or something. "Okay, yeah." He steps away and pulls his cell from his pocket, and Steve slumps against the side of the car and tries to get his bearings.

So, Bucky isn't a murderer. That's good. But he lied and Steve can't help wondering how much of their time together was real and how much was Bucky playing the part of the young hot shot exec he was posing as.

Then there's the fact that Steve now knows what a gunshot sounds like, and what it feels like having someone trying to shoot at you in particular. And Zola –

"Wait, Zola," he gasps.

"What, what is it?" Bucky asks, coming over, his phone still in his hand.

"I'm privately restoring a painting for Zola. He came by my apartment the other day he – Bucky, he knows where I live. My roommates!"

"Come on!" Bucky tells him, already climbing into the car.

………………………………………………………

They pull up in front of the apartment just in time to see Sam and the others being marched out onto the street between the two guys that Steve recognizes from earlier. 

Bucky tells him to stay in the car and then pulls a gun from the glove compartment. Steve, incapable of following orders, hops out too.

"FBI! Hands on your heads!" Bucky's shouting, and Steve gets a split-second to think that they may make it out of this when there's a familiar bark and Steve knows what's about to happen even before any of it does. He makes a grab for the car door, trying to climb back inside but he's not fast enough.

"Sassy, stay!" Bucky shouts, not even looking. "Sasquatch, no!" 

But Sasquatch has had time to get to know Steve, now, and it hasn't improved his manners any. He's pulled his leash free from the teenager who was minding him and charges right at Steve.

It must be enough to distract Bucky because by the time Steve's managed to shove Sasquatch off one of the suits has a gun on Bucky, and the other has one on Steve, and after that there's not much else they can do but climb into the back of a dry cleaning van along with everyone else.

"Hey, how's it going?" Natasha asks when they're all seated on the floor of the van.

"Now's not the time for jokes, Nat," Sam mutters.

"I can't think of a better time," she argues. "It's how I cope with stress."

"Shut up!" one of the suits yell, and Steve pats his pocket, double-checks that he's got his rescue inhaler on hand because he thinks if things keep going the way they have been, he's probably gonna need it.


	4. Chapter 4

Steve discovers that it's very difficult to look righteously indignant when you're shackled to a rolling clothes rack filled with glittery dresses that keep smacking you in the face every time you try to move.

"Fuck," he hisses.

"Just relax," Natasha tells him.

"I can't 'relax', Natasha," he growls. "In case you haven't noticed, we've been abducted by people with guns."

"She's noticed. We've all noticed," Tony mutters. "And – by the way – nobody's explained why the hell that is."

Steve rolls his eyes. "Jim's an undercover FBI agent. Apparently." Bucky glares and Steve glares back, and then makes a face just because. Then he goes back to trying to ignore Bucky's existence. Something that's easier said than done, especially as Bucky's hand-cuffed to the same clothes wrack, only he's clipped to the bottom support rail and Steve's clipped to the top, which means Bucky's sitting on the ground and he's pretty much crouching between Steve's legs.

Thor frowns. "How can that be? Everyone knows he's Jims Buchanan."

"Oh my god!" and Steve can tell from the sheepish look Bucky gives him that it's true even before he says it, "That's not even your real name, is it?"

"It's pretty close," Bucky says, like that makes it better somehow. "It's uh, James Buchanan Barnes."

"Jesus."

Natasha shrugs. "It could be worse."

"What could be worse right now?" Steve demands.

"His name isn't something weird, like Bob Smoot."

"What the fuck does that even mean?" Tony wonders.

"I don't know," Natasha says. "I'm just saying. There are worse things than finding out his last name's actually Barnes."

"Look," Tony says. "As delightful as it is for me to hear that Steve's slept with a guy without even knowing his real name and, believe me, it's a hoot. If we're going to die, I'd still like a few things cleared up – like what the actual fuck is going on?"

"It's a case!" Steve snaps. "This whole thing – the fashion thing, the murder – all of it. He's trying to crack some Russian smuggling ring. Laundering money through dresses. Did I get that right?"

"Steve—" Bucky says, wincing.

"Well, whoever designed these clearly lacks taste," Natasha notes, eyeing the dresses hanging from the rack their all attached to. 

Steve has never been accused of having much sense of style but he can't imagine a lot of classy ladies being interested in a dress like the one whose crinoline is currently getting caught in his mouth. There's a garish amount of rhinestones on the bodice and stuck in a haphazard pattern along the skirt. It looks like a wedding dress from the 80's, except there's no puffed sleeves and the color is a sad periwinkle-greyish tone.

"Shit, what if that's it?" Bucky murmurs.

"What?" Steve wonders, spitting out crinoline from his mouth in order to talk.

Bucky doesn't answer because he's too busy mashing his face into the fluffy skirt, which pushes it back against Steve's hip and just --- Bucky's doing something down there, with his mouth. 

"Oh god," Steve says, staring down in horror. "Are you crazy? Now's not the time for this!"

Bucky jerks his head back and spits, and something plinks onto the floor. He looks at Steve in triumph. "If these were rhinestones I would have been able to crush that instead of just chipping my tooth. Shit. I was so caught-up tracking the money I forgot about the dresses." He bumps his forehead against the cold rail of the clothes rack. "It was never about laundering money. They're smuggling diamonds. They must replace them with zirconium before the dresses go to the shipping outlets."

Thor makes a face. "Why smuggle diamonds when you can simply go to any jewelry store? With no need to commit a felony."

"No," Natasha disagrees. "Not Russian diamonds. It's illegal to take those out of the country."

"You're all missing the bigger picture here," Steve reminds them. "It doesn't matter if they're laundering money, or smuggling diamonds. We can't do anything about any of it when we're handcuffed to a clothes rack."

"I'm working on it," Bucky mutters.

"Oh yeah? What have you come up with so far, agent." Bucky scowls and Steve tries for the hundredth time to test the cuffs on the chance his skinny little wrists might just manage to slip free. They don't.

He sighs. "Well, I might have something."

"Something helpful, or something crazy?" Sam asks, because he knows Steve.

Steve rolls his shoulders back and sticks his chin out. "If it gets us out of here, it's worth the risk." 

"Risk? What risk?" Bucky demands, but Steve ignores him in favor of shortening his breath.

The trouble with faking an asthma attack is that, in his experience, it almost always induces an actual asthma attack. If he had other options he'd take them, but this is what he can come up with on short notice. They just need a distraction – a chance.

"Oh fuck, you fucking idiot," Sam says but then he starts shouting, and the others take the hint and soon they're all making a pretty decent racket as Steve hyperventilates.

The door to the room where they've been kept, along with a lot of hideous dresses, flings open and Brock sneers at them, jabbing a gun in Thor's face and telling everyone to shut up.

"Please! He's having an asthma attack," Sam says. "His inhaler's in his pocket but he can't get to it. Just – please."

"What do I care?" Brock asks. "We're probably going to kill all of you anyway. So he chokes himself to death. So what?"

"Hey, asshole," Natasha says, and she swings her leg out and up, landing a solid hit right between Brock's legs, who responds by turning slightly green, shielding the assaulted area with both hands and dropping to his knees. 

Bucky strikes out at the same moment Natasha does, both of them striking Brock in the head from either-side, and he pitches forward and collapses onto the floor, 'thunk', out cold. Natasha toes the key ring that's spilled out of Brock's pocket over, and then deftly unlocks her cuffs.

"Are you actually dying right now?" she asks Steve, although she's already reaching into his pocket for his emergency inhaler.

"Maybe – one puff –" and he lets her fit the inhaler between his lips and breathes-in when she depresses the button. "Okay," he says, when he can feel his breath settling. She eyes him carefully but nods, slipping the inhaler back in his pocket before going to work on his cuffs. 

"Nice moves," Sam tells her, rubbing at his wrists. "Where'd you learn that?"

She shrugs. "I know things."

"That was a stupid thing to do, Steve," Bucky snarls when he's released.

Steve bristles. "It worked, didn't it? I didn't see you coming up with anything better."

"How long are you gonna be pissed at me?"

"I'm not pissed—" then, because that's so obviously a lie he can't even convince himself, "I'll get back to you on that. Once we survive this." He catches the frustrated expression on Bucky's face and jerks his chin up. "Everything between us has been a lie, okay? And now me and my friends are being hunted by the Russian mob so I think I'm entitled to a little anger right now."

"Hydra's not technically Russian mafia," Bucky points out. "And – not everything between us was a lie."

Steve would dearly love to retort but Thor intercedes, "I appreciate that this is a complicated situation, but perhaps the rest of this argument is better saved until we've successfully made our escape."

"You're right," Bucky says, and then he rips a sleeve off one of the dresses and stuffs it into his pocket. "What?" he asks when he realizes they're all staring at him. "It's evidence."

Tony rips the sleeve off of another dress. "Compensation for emotional distress."

"Dude, you're loaded," Sam says. "What the heck do you need to steal diamonds for?"

Since it's a working clothes factory and it's the middle of the day, there's not a lot of armed people milling around. Most everyone they see is an employee who's all too happy to focus on their work and ignore the shifty comings and goings around them.

Steve assumes that must be a requirement for employment in a place run by the Russian mob. Either way, they make it almost all the way out of the factory before anyone realizes they've escaped.

"Hey!" someone shouts, but by then they're almost to the street. 

They start running and it's no small relief when they push their way through a heavy green door and find themselves outdoors, on some upper-walkway. Steve has no idea where they are, but there are banners for Fashion Week hanging from the side of the building and a fancy furniture store at the corner. It's a strange relief to realize there are people walking on the sidewalks and cars on the road, even though Hydra has proved they have no problem firing weapons in the lobby of an office building, or abducting people in the middle of the road.

Sure enough, two guards kick open the door they all had just come through, weapons drawn.

"Shit!" Tony cries at the same time that Bucky points and shouts, "Jump!"

They fling themselves over the edge of the walkway intending to bounce off the roof of the vehicles below and then run down the street, but Steve's luck being what it is he ends up falling through the open sunroof of a limousine.

"Excuse me," he gasps, and there's a thump – two – three on the roof above, and Bucky shouts his name, and then suddenly Natasha's shimmying gracelessly through the sunroof and Steve has to scramble out of the way or be crushed.

"What is this? What is happening?" a heavily accented man asks. "You can't be in here. This is my car."

The passenger door opens on one side and Bucky peaks in, looks vaguely sheepish when he sees the man and says, "Pardon me, sir, FBI. We need a lift" and climbs in.

"FBI?" the man echoes and then there are two loud bangs and it sounds like someone punched the side of the car but Steve thinks what actually happened is the guards are shooting at them.

"Get down!" Bucky cries, and he drags Steve off the seat and into the foot well and tries to cover him and all of Steve's roommates at once.

"Don't worry about that, this limousine is bullet-proof," the man tells them casually. "I don't trust Americans and their gun laws."

Tony squirms around, shoving Bucky's arm out of the way so he can't squint up at their rescuer. "Holy shit."

"What?" everyone wonders, but it's Thor who manages to twist around first to get a look, and then he's shoving his way out from the pile of bodies and shaking the stranger's hand.

"Mister Erskine, sir. It's an honor. Truly."

"Oh, thank-you, thank-you but please, don't tease," the man, Erskine, says. "It's bad enough half of my models cancelled on me at the last minute because of the flu –"

"Natasha," Steve whispers. "Who's Erskine?"

"Fashion designer. Very popular runway shows. Nice clothes."

"Wait, did you say 'runway?" Bucky asks and the same moment Tony says, "Did someone say models? Ask and you shall receive!" 

Bucky's got his cell phone out again but Steve can't hear what he's saying over top of the cheers his roommates give when Erskine agrees to hire them last minute for his show, and then the limo is pulling to a stop and someone's opening the car door for them.

"Uh, you're aware we're still technically on the run from a lot of people carrying weapons," Steve asks as Natasha hops onto her feet on the sidewalk and immediately begins following the others towards a massive white tent.

"Who, those guys? We lost them six blocks back. This is a good gig, Steve. A career maker."

"Maybe so but –"

And then Bucky's touching his arm, trying to get his attention. "I think Zola might be here."

"What? Here?" 

"I've got to find him, if I can do that I can make the arrest."

Steve frowns. "So make the arrest. What's stopping you?" he tries to step away and head off after the others but Bucky halts him again. 

"I'm going to personally ensure that you make it out of this. Okay?"

"You don't have to. I can get by on my own."

"Steve—" but Steve's done listening. If there are Hydra agents in there then none of them are safe, and it's his fault that his friends are in danger, so it's his job to protect them.

"Sam?" he calls when steps into the tent. He has no idea what he imagined runway shoes were like, but it certainly didn't involve this sort of barely controlled chaos. There are people wielding make-up brushes, hair spray and curling irons like weaponry, and others rushing around with massive colorful gowns that they're struggling to keep from dragging on the floor. He can't see Sam or anyone else, and he doesn't get all that long to look because then Erskine steps up beside him and says, "Good! This is the last one. Make him look perfect!" and then Steve's swarmed by a small army of people.

"No, there's been a misunderstanding," he tries to explain as they usher him into a folding canvas chair. "I'm not a model." But someone's drawing on his face with pencil and someone else is tugging at his hair, and when he tries to dodge out of their way he spots Brock barging into the tent.

"Uh – no, it's fine. Carry on!" Steve tells him and scrunches down in the chair, and someone else plucks his glass off and after that there's not much that Steve can do but comply.

They make a mess out of his hair, and there's dark make-up around his eyes. Steve snatches his glasses when they attempt to usher him along, stares at the bizarreness of his own reflection – he would never in his life walk down the street looking like this. Not ever.

But then he's dragged from the chair and over to a clothing rack where two people start man-handling him out of his clothes and three others start taking out clothing from the rack – presumably what they expect him to wear – and he boggles.

"Are you serious?" he wonders. "This looks like a pile of laundry!"

"Honey, this is high fashion!" someone tells him, and then carefully steals his glasses again, and maneuvers a shirt over his head, trying not to disturb his hair.

The shirt hangs off him so horribly and he can tell the people trying to dress him are panicking as they attempt to pin the clothing on his body – it keeps slipping off his shoulders and considering this bizarre ensemble comes with a pair of colorful suspenders he's pretty sure it isn't going to work and just ---

"Stop, stop! Just let me wear the one I had on!" he tells him. "It's just a blouse, what's it matter?"

"This is filthy!" one of the men notes distastefully, holding up Steve's shirt. It's the one he uses as a smock while he works and Steve realizes that he'd been wearing that because he'd been at work when he'd seen the paper. It feels like it's been days, not hours. The man scratches a nail across a colorful splotch of dried paint, and cringes. "This won't do!" and chucks it over his shoulder like the shirt is garbage.

"Hey!" Steve hisses. 

"Go," says the man, obviously the leader of this gang. "Get the next one started. I'll find a shirt … somewhere."

Steve's left alone, half-dressed in the most bizarre ensemble he's ever seen, blouse hanging off his frame and he tries dragging it up to cover more of himself, which is when he sees Natasha. Or at least, a blur of a red familiar hair he thinks must be Natasha. He gropes for his glasses.

"Nat!" he hisses. "Hydra's here. Bucky thinks this might have been the meeting place all along. I saw one of the goons a minute ago."

"What are you wearing?" she asks him.

"I have no idea! I thought you said this designer was good?"

She snickers. "It's too big on you. You're swimming in this!"

"Shut up," he scowls, but then she's being ushered up to the front of the tent where there's a few steps leading up with a rail that presumably leads out to a catwalk. "Tell the others!"

She waves to show she's understood and Steve blows out a breath, wonders if he can't quietly escape now that no one seems to be paying him any attention and then another Hydra goon comes prowling around the row of mirrored make-up counters.

"Shit," Steve hisses. He's half-naked and there's no way he can blend in with his hair sticking up like this and all this eye-makeup on. He scrambles for his paint-spattered shirt and drags it on just as the man's passing him. From there he stares a bit helplessly at the outfit.

It really does just look like a laundry heap and he has no idea how all the hanging bits are supposed to go. The suspenders are easy enough to figure out so he drags those over his shoulders and adjust his shirt. 

There's a strange sash-like piece that he doesn't know what to do with – there's what look to be over thirty ties hanging off it, and then there's a separate tie hanging on a hanger. He looks between both pieces and then puts the single tie on, and then drapes the sash over one shoulder a little hesitantly.

"You're not ready!" Someone shouts, bustling up to him. "Hurry, you're almost on."

Steve almost asks what the woman means but of course if he's wearing one of Erskine's outfits they're going to expect him to walk the runway. The woman unhooks the sash he'd draped over his shoulder and hooks it around his hips instead like a kilt. Then she fusses over the tie he'd settled properly beneath the collar, loosening it and then tightening it again on the skin of his neck. "Here, put these one," she tells him and shows him a pair of combat boots with dark purple laces.

"You're serious," he asks her but drags them on anyway and then she smacks his hands away when he tries to lace them up, fussing with the 'drape' of his pants as she stuffs them into the top of the boot and then laces them 'just so'.

He thinks that must be it. There's so much color and pattern and chaos in a single outfit, with his bizarre hair but when he takes a step away she halts him, and then grabs someone passing by and then both women are hauling something over to him.

"Arms out," he's told, and Jesus – those are wings. Wings made out of ties. He's covered in ties and he thinks, if he crouched into a ball maybe the Hydra thugs would just think he was a clothes heap and leave him alone.

But he doesn't get that chance because the women are hoisting the wings over his shoulders like a backpack. The come up passed his ears and hang down below his knees and the women tutt and fuss about this – he's too short, apparently, the wings are hanging too low.

"A different model?" one woman asks.

"Who?" the other asks.

But Steve sees Brock making another circuit of the changing area and he starts edging away from his dressers and, when he sees a hat sitting by one of the make-up stations he snatches that and puts it on, pulling the brim low over his eyes.

Unfortunately, edging away from Brock means heading towards the runway. Someone halts his progress, consults a clipboard, then ushers him towards the stairs. 

Steve hesitates, hoping that maybe the man with the clipboard will get distracted and Steve can slip away (although it's hard to be subtle when you're strapped into a pair of four foot long wings). He tries to edge away from the stairs all the same, except there's Brock coming closer, and another goon Steve recognizes coming from the other direction. 

There's only one away out and Steve takes.

He staggers through the curtain, happy for his hat with the lights practically blind him. Cameras are flashing but when he can't see anything but darkness beyond the pristine white catwalk he's standing on. There's so much noise! Music and people and the click-clicking of camera shots. Steve panics again, trying to duck back behind the curtain.

Brock's grabbed a fancy, double-breasted long evening coat and is stalking to the steps, so Steve resigns himself to his fate.

The boots are too large on his feet and he stomps a little heavily but hopefully people will interpret that as his 'model walk'. After months living with models he now knows this is a thing, and one that can make or break a model's career.

Happily, Steve has no modeling career to be concerned about because he stomps out to the middle of the T-shaped runway and then promptly trips over his too-large boots and goes down in a heap of ties. 

Sam, who's posing for the cameras at the end of the runway, gives Steve a look you okay' and Steve looks back 'ow' and then hauls himself back onto his feet. Maybe nobody noticed he hopes vaguely and he tries to nudge some of the ties back to where he thinks they were hanging before but it's really no use. Maybe a clasp or something's come loose, but at least he can still feel the weight of the wings hanging on his back (making his spine twinge) and the outfit looked like a laundry heap anyway so what's the difference? He doubts anyone will be scrambling to look like a living tie-rack anyway.

Originally, Steve had intended to merely strut across the back of the runway, exited stage-right and safely away from Brock, but once he's collected himself he realizes that there's another Hydra goon waiting, and with Brock still hovering stage-left both exits are blocked.

There's no other choice but to stomp down that catwalk where Sam's already strutting back. "What the hell?" Sam mouthes at him, and Steve shrugs helplessly. He can barely see anything beyond the catwalk but when he reaches the end and tries to pose he spots Zola sitting front-and-center, looking shocked – whether to see Steve alive or see him on a runway is anyone's guess.

Steve spins around and starts tromping back, just in time to catch Sam knocking one of the goons over the head with a heeled combat boot and waving Steve over. Steve picks up speed and nearly takes-out Tony with a wing, who's strutting down the catwalk in a chic pin-striped suit.

Steve's momentarily bitter that he got the bizarre tie-rack outfit and everyone else gets the classy suits but then the Brock and his stolen coat steps onto the catwalk, stalking towards Steve. Started, Steve starts walking backwards and bumps into Tony. 

Tony, who's wearing a pair of high-heeled combat boots not unlike the ones Sam had used to hit the guard, loses his balance and falls over and the whole catwalk creaks beneath them. He recovers faster than Steve managed (probably because he's not being crushed under an enormous pair of wings), and he links arm with Steve and together they march back to the end of the catwalk and away from Brock.

Steve is fully prepared to leap off the end of the catwalk and keep walking, just so long as he can stay away from the gun-wielding maniac.

The music cuts out with a shrill cry and there's a thundering sound of running feet. Steve glances over his shoulder in time to see Sam and Natasha dash out from either side of the stage and flying-tackle Brock to the ground and Thor who leaps out after them, lands on top of the whole pile of them with a mighty roar. 

"Yes!" Tony crows and hops on his high-heeled feet, which is the precise moment the stage gives-out and sends Steve pitching off, landing right on top of someone who bellows and stands up.

It's instinct that makes Steve lock his knees together to keep from toppling onto the floor. He's sitting practically on someone shoulders, the tie-kilt has come loose and is covering the man's face and the wings are making him overbalance so he shrugs his shoulder and they land with a solid 'whump' on the ground but whoever Steve's currently sitting on top of must trip over them, because the world tilts again and Steve's disoriented and trying to figure out what the hell just happened that he it hasn't fully occurred to him that he's currently on top of someone's shoulders until Bucky appears like magic in front of.

"Steve! Move your hands!" Bucky tells him, which Steve has no desire to do because if he moves his hands he's going to fall. He's clinging with every bit of muscle he has. "Steve," Bucky says. "Trust me." 

Steve pulls his hands away and Bucky throws a punch at whoever Steve's sitting on. The man collapses which sends Steve's toppling from his perch but Bucky catches him with embarrassing ease.

"You okay?" Bucky asks, his hands braced on Steve's hips to steady him.

"What the fuck just happened?" Steve asks.

"Hold that thought," Bucky tells him, and pulls a set of handcuffs from his belt and steps over whoever he just punched in the head.

It turns out it's Zola, and Steve gets to stand there gaping in a paint-splattered shirt and a kilt made of ties as Bucky patiently enunciates his way through the Miranda Rights while locking a pair of cuffs around the man's wrists.

………………………………………………………

Apparently, having your models rugby tackle each other in the middle of the show, collapse the stage and destroy the sound system is what the fashion world considers a successful runway show. Erskine is tickled with the results, thanks each one of them profusely and points at Steve's paint-spattered shirt.

"That's not one of mine, is it?"

"Uh, no sir," Steve admits sheepishly.

"It's gorgeous. I have people placing orders already. We'll have to work-up some arrangement for sharing your design. We can discuss it later, when you aren't so busy of course," he looks pointedly at the FBI and police prowling through the empty fashion tent and then hands Steve a business card.

"All of you can expect a call from me," Erskine says to where Steve and his friends are sitting on the one stable portion of the stage. "Fabulous show. Thank-you!"

"Gentlemen, Lady," a woman in a tailored black pantsuit greets as she approaches them. "Thank-you for your help today. You'll each be receiving a special commendation from the director of the FBI for meritorious service. Agent Barnes assures us he couldn't have solved this case without your help."

"You look familiar," Thor says. "Have we met before?"

"Is now really the time to be flirting?" Sam hisses.

"I'm not. She's genuinely familiar," Thor hisses back.

She is familiar, and Steve realizes why a split-second later. She's the woman he'd seen at Bucky's party, the same one he'd thought Bucky had bludgeoned to death and who's body had apparently been found that morning – which had prompted this whole mess to begin with.

"Agent Hill, can I have a second?" Bucky asks. They bump fists before she heads away.

"She's you partner?" Steve wonders.

Bucky shrugs. "Yeah. They wanted me on this case because I'm apparently the best dressed in the department, but she's one of our best uh – I think she was happy when her cover got blown and she got to work behind-the-scenes. The fashion industry isn't really her scene."

"Yeah, I don't blame her," Steve mutters.

Bucky smiles. "You uh, you've got something—" and he gestures at Steve's right cheek, which is when Steve realizes he's been rubbing his eyes because they've been itchy, and they've probably been itching because of all the make-up on his face.

"Shit!" he snarls, rubbing at his cheek. "Is it everywhere? It's probably everywhere. God, I think I'm allergic to it."

Shaking his head, Bucky passes him a packet of Kleenex and then looks a bit sheepish. Steve realizes that at some point every single one of his roommates has cleared away, and he wants to know how they did that without his noticing because they're all still wearing some pretty serious combat boots and walking quietly is not physically possible for any of them right now.

"Look, I wanted to apologize again," Bucky tells him. "I know this isn't the best place for it, and probably not the best time but …" he glances around, and then shifts Steve away from where most of the bright lights are pointing. "I'm sorry I lied to you, Steve. But I'm not sorry I met you. Not even a little bit." He waits, like he expects Steve to say something, but Steve has no idea what would be appropriate so he stays silent.

"I was hoping maybe you could forgive me," Bucky continues. "That we could start over."

Steve thinks about dating Bucky, and it makes him feel warm. But then he remembers that he was dating Bucky the fashion exec, not Bucky the FBI agent. He has no idea what, if anything would be different.

"I don't know," Steve hedges. "I just ended a relationship with this guy named Jim because he wasn't honest with me from the beginning. I'm just not sure I'm ready to start something new. I don't have much luck with relationships."

"Come on, Barnes," agent Hill says. As she passes she claps a hand on Bucky's shoulder. "There's a whole stack of paperwork with our names on it." She pauses, glancing between them. "Am I interrupting something?"

"I—" but Bucky closes his mouth on whatever he'd been about to say. He looks at Steve, a little at sea, but Steve can only shrug. He doesn't know either.

Bucky nods, 'message received' even though Steve is so confused from the emotional rollercoaster this day turned into that he genuinely has no idea what he's feeling except confused and hurt and a little desperate for Bucky to reach out and hold onto him for a minute until he can make sense out of everything that's happened.

"Naw," Bucky says, instead. "The sooner we get started on that, the sooner we can wrap up the case."

There's a second when Bucky walks away when he glances over his shoulder and Steve thinks: that's the look! The exact look of that figure in the Titian, the exact look he's been painting in that face that isn't quite but is also too much like Bucky's.

Part longing and part invitation and Steve almost calls for Bucky to wait, but he doesn't. There are too many conflicting emotions roiling around inside him, and he's angry, exhausted and still buzzing with adrenaline. He can't make sense of anything he's feeling and so he just stands there and watches as Bucky and agent Hill walk away.

………………………………………………………

"I screwed up, Sam," Steve admits that evening, when they've made it back to their apartment and Steve's showered the horrible gel out of his hair and washed the make-up off his face. "This one's on me. I should have said something."

"Hey, man. It happens, and given what a mess that whole thing was, I'm pretty sure the guy would cut you some slack for being a little confused. Why don't you talk to him?"

Except the next morning when Steve glances out the window on his way to the kitchen Bucky's apartment is empty: no furniture, no books or photographs, just vacant walls and bare floor and not a soul in sight.

"He moved out," he says even though no one's there to hear him.

He stares across the street at the empty apartment and feels everything slipping away. Bucky's gone, and it's Steve's fault for being such an idiot, for not accepting the other man's apology, or saying something more coherent when he had the chance. For letting his fear get the better of him.

Then he realizes he has Bucky's cell number and almost sprints to his room, snatching up his phone and scrolling through the contacts.

It rings five times and then disconnects so Steve tries Bucky's number again, and then again, but every time there's a recorded voice telling him that the number's not in service.

It wasn't his real number, Steve realizes.

Of course it wasn't. Why would an undercover agent use his own phone on a case, when it could expose his identity? It makes sense, but it means Steve has no way to reach Bucky now. 

He's gone, Steve realizes, dropping onto his bed. Bucky's really gone and Steve has no one to blame but himself.

………………………………………………………

Steve walks home from work on the wrong side of the street because he keeps wondering if maybe Bucky might still go to the same coffee shop, or if maybe he forgot something and has to stop by his old apartment building to pick it up.

He gets take-out once from the restaurant where they'd had their date, but that just puts him in a bad mood and he gives the food to Thor and makes scrambled eggs instead.

The aquarium, he tells himself, is just a nice place to unwind. He sketches there sometimes when he needs a break from the Titian and from his roommates.

He never sees Bucky but Steve tells himself he's not actually looking.

………………………………………………………

When he's done, the Titian is resurrected from the dull browns that had swallowed its detail. A romantic interplay of shadow and light, and there at the heart of the painting, a familiar face glancing over his shoulder, beckoning the viewer to come further – to come and see.  
"Nice work, Rogers," Fury says, regarding the painting critically. Steve shuffles his feet awkwardly and tries to keep his eyes away from the canvas even as he can't help gazing at it.

"Are you going to give him a call?" Peggy asks when Fury has finished causing a disturbance amongst their group. She purposely pitches her voice light and casual, but she can't hide the intent in her eyes. 

Sitting on the stool in front of the painting with Bucky's face perfectly distinct and immortalized on canvas, Steve can't really pretend he doesn't know exactly who she's talking about. He sighs. "No." Shaking his head, he pulls himself up from his slump, tries to sound convincing when he says, "It was fun – crazy, and complicated, I guess too. But, it's over now, and I'm alright."

Darcy glances pointedly between Steve and the restored Titian. "Uh huh," she says, skeptical. "So, rub him out." She reaches over, plucks a Q-tip from the cup he keeps in the tray of his easel, swishes it in the emulsion cleaner mixture and presents it to him. "Go on."

Steve takes the Q-tip and turns to the canvas. Bucky stares back him from the center of the painting and Steve tosses the Q-tip into the trash. "I'm not going to rub him out. I'd have to start all over again, and Fury likes the finished product as it is now."

"Coward," Darcy accuses with a sly grin. She kisses his cheek.

"Now Darcy, don't be cruel. You said yourself that everyone needs a rebound after a serious relationship. Perhaps this was Steve's," Peggy offers.

"Peggy," Darcy says, eyebrow cocked. "Come on."

"The truth is," Steve confides when Darcy's shuffled back to her own work. "I don't have his number. I tried but –"

"Oh, my sweet boy," Peggy says, and drags him under her arm. "Come to dinner with us tonight. We'll drink wine and watch a terrible movie and fall asleep in a heap on that terrible pullout couch. It might not make you feel better but you can forget for a little while, at least."

"You don't gotta do that for me, Peg."

"It's what you do for family."

Steve smiles. "Okay, then."

………………………………………………………

A dog barks from somewhere across the street as Steve walks back to his apartment. He doesn't glance around because it's been weeks and he's given-up expecting to see Sasquatch on this street. 

But the bark comes again, this time from much closer, and he can't help it – Steve looks.

"Sassy, wait! Stop, would ya?"

Steve waits until Sasquatch has just started to launch into the air and then he promptly steps to the left, neatly dodging the dog's rambunctious greeting although Sasquatch recovers quickly, circleing around Steve's legs, whuffing softly and whagging his tail.

"Wow, good instincts," Bucky says, jogging up.

"Thanks," Steve says, trying and probably failing not to grin like an idiot. Nice dog. Is he yours?"

Bucky smirks. "You bet. He's a rescue pup, still learning manners, apparently."

Steve crouches so he can greet Sasquatch properly, his fingers scratching behind Sassy's ears. "I uh—" Bucky starts. "I just moved into the neighborhood actually."

"Oh yeah?" Steve stands up again, tucks his hands into his pockets, and then pulls them out again. "Where?"

"The building across from this one, actually," and Bucky points to the one across from Steve's building. "You want to come up and see it? It's got a really good view."

Steve tips his chin down to hide his smile. "But we just met."

"Right," and Bucky smiles. "I'm James Buchanan Barnes, but my friends call me 'Bucky'."

"Bucky, huh?"

"Yeah, I know." He rubs the back of his neck, shrugs. "Bucky's a bit of a strange nickname. My sister came up with it, actually and it just – stuck, I guess."

"So. What's your line of work, Bucky?"

"It's funny you should ask, actually," he says, and Steve pretends not to notice that they've started walking in the direction of Bucky's new place. "I just got promoted to a nice boring desk job with the FBI."

"It's a little weird. You look a lot like a guy I used to go out with—" Steve teases.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah." Steve shrugs. "He's not as cute as you."

"Come on. I wanna show you my new place."

The new place is still pretty bare: plain walls with no pictures, boxes stacked up and no furniture really. Just one ornately carved wooden side table that would have looked very much out of place in Bucky's old apartment. Steve likes it.

"Still waiting for the truck with the rest of my stuff," Bucky tells him, leading him through the labyrinth of boxes until he can hop up onto the low window ledge. The windows aren't as wide as the ones in Steve's place, but they're tall and let the perfect amount of natural light spill through. "Come look at this."

"What?" Steve asks, grabbing Bucky's offered hand and joining Bucky on the ledge. 

The view is gorgeous. Bucky's apartment is just above the roofline of Steve's and someone's got a whole roof garden laid out and, beyond that, Steve can see the city skyline, trees changing color and the bustle of the streets. 

"Look down there," Bucky tells him, pointing at something to the left and when Steve looks he can see right into his own apartment where Thor's half-naked and doing yoga, and Nat's sprawled on the couch eating a yogurt cup.

"Oh my god."

"Told you it had a great view."

"My mom used to tell me you shouldn't look into your neighbor's windows. It can only lead to trouble."

"Well, you can't always believe what you see," Bucky agrees. "But someone I knew told me sometimes you have to take a deeper look. I think about that a lot."

Steve turns away from the window. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

He hadn't realized how close they were standing until Bucky leans the slightest bit forward and they're inches away. Those grey-blue eyes glance up from Steve's lips and Steve decides he's done with being coy. He's also done worrying about his bizarre relationship curse. The curse is broken, he decides. If this whole thing – whatever it was – crazy or perfect – hadn't successfully nullified the curse nothing would. 

Just when their lips are about to touch Bucky teeters, wobbles and then drops to his knees. "Jesus!"

"It's too soon to propose," Steve tells him, wryly.

"I'm not – you punk. My knees gave-out, is all, that's a really weird feeling. Help me up," and he flails a hand demandingly in Steve's direction until Steve obligingly hauls him back to his feet.

When Bucky's standing again, face pink with embarrassment, Steve narrows his eyes. "Are you making fun of me?"

"God, you're a prickly little bastard sometimes."

"Would you just come over here and kiss me already? I've been waiting for weeks."

So Bucky does.


End file.
